


The Bleak Light of Day

by moz17



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Eventual relationship, M/M, Peter Jakes-centric, but not for quite a while, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:26:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 49,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1515464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moz17/pseuds/moz17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about the aftermath of "Neverland", following Peter Jakes as he works through what this means for himself, for the station and for Endeavour Morse...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Peter woke up slowly, with difficulty, almost fighting his way back to consciousness as a swimmer would kick their way out of the depths, no sense of what was up or down. His night had been dreamless; the booze had seen to that. Yet, as he surfaced, he had still been confused, uncertain as to where he was or what day he found himself in. The wallpaper, yellowed by his cigarettes, came into focus and he knew then he was in Oxford, in his bedsit. There were still mornings when he opened his eyes and it took him some time to strain for the knowledge and certainty of where he was. 

Sharp pain crashed through his head, followed by such a violent nausea that he only had time and strength enough to sit up and lean over the edge of his bed before vomiting copiously; he was helpless as it spewed out of him, running over his chin. He closed his eyes in disgust at how his body had betrayed him, at how he had allowed himself to be reduced to this state. 

He got to his feet carefully, focused for the moment on cleaning up his mess and then cleaning up himself. He caught a whiff of his own smell, of stale fags and booze and puke and he swayed, swallowing down his body's need to void itself again. This was why he didn't get drunk. It was one of the reasons anyway why he usually never allowed himself to get so hammered. Of course he drank with the others down the station and made sure he always covered his round but he never drank to the stage he had managed to reach and then proceeded to pole vault beyond last night. He had drunk enough and regularly so when he was younger as to be able to hold his drink and not worry about not being able to keep pace with whoever he was with. He consumed enough so as to pass unnoticed by his peers and colleagues. He didn't particularly enjoy alcohol. Cigarettes gave him the kick and satisfaction others seemed to find in beer and whiskey. He didn't question others enjoying alcohol- he just took it as part of human nature and so sought to incorporate it into his own life. You could observe others much better when they felt you were an interchangeable part of their group. Peter didn't have any foolish notions about how he was viewed down the station; the others knew they could have a drink with him and that they'd have a laugh with him. But any of a hundred sergeants could have done that. However this was the way Peter wanted and needed his situation with others to be. He had known from a young age that his ability to observe and see what others couldn't and to gain knowledge from this, was his best asset. That and his bloody stubbornness. He would possibly add his looks to that list too. He was aware that the combination of these three things had got him as far as he was. 

Drinking his fair share helped him blend in but drinking as he had last night had the opposite effect. Booze dulled your senses, left you mentally and physically lax, and unable to react sharpish and be in a position to defend yourself. Last night though, he had been beyond caring. All the rituals and routines, the rules about appearance and behaviour he had dictated to himself and cultivated over the years had been to serve two purposes- to prevent him from ever being subject to such acts again and to block the memories of those acts from his mind. The past few days had revealed how flimsy his reinforcements had been and that those acts were with him forever, his mind like the infinity symbol Morse had believed he'd seen, a circle, unending and unbroken, going back over his memories repeatedly, monotonously, a muffled voice bawling at him ceaselessly. If he did not possess the strength or the ability to blot out those thoughts, then it was as if the acts were happening to him again and again. So what did it matter if he drank himself into a stupor, leaving himself prey to such acts once more? What difference did it make if the monsters were in his head or on his body? They were there. 

So, he drank, working through a series of whiskeys in quick succession. He watched his money disappearing, not particularly caring. What good could money do for him now? Before he had believed to have gained real security with his wages and the supplements he created for himself. But now he saw the paper thinness for what it was and hoped to Christ that the stuff would at least gain him a few hours of blind nothingness which the booze could lend to him. He needed to sit somewhere and destroy himself, to destroy himself while no one else would see him. He had to be away from those so used to his professional self. He wanted only to drink and exist for no one, to not exist, to not have to please anyone else because fuck, he'd been doing that in one form or another since he was a child.  
He hadn't wanted the world to stop or change. He had merely needed to step off the world for a while, or at least drink himself into a place where it was possible to pretend to himself he could remove himself from the world, a place where time held no particular meaning, no sense of having a past or continually trying to meet some future he had only the vaguest thoughts about. 

And yet. And yet instead of just buying a few bottles of whiskey and drinking himself into oblivion, he had gone to the pub. He knew most likely that Morse would be in the pub. If he had been betting, he would have put a fair amount of money on it. He couldn't precisely articulate what it was he wanted from Morse. He had sat there, sinking more and more into himself but the young constable remained a small source of light, intermittently flashing though far, far away from him, unreachable.  
Perhaps it was that Morse was so belligerently himself, unwilling or incapable of sanding off any of his sharp corners so as to make his way through life smoother. This man would somehow be alright with seeing Jakes at the moment when he unraveled, would not judge him for it. He could not explain why but he felt that this man understood how the loneliest place was inside your own head and that the furthest distance in the world to travel was the distance between two people. He had wished for a confirmation, a nodded camaraderie, a recognition of this experience. He could not hope for any more. 

He was still on his hands and knees, using a dishcloth and bucket to clean up the mess he'd made. When he had finally washed out the dish cloth, poured away the contents of the bucket and used some toilet paper to dry the floor, then he could start on his usual morning rituals: washing himself, fixing his hair, knotting his tie, making sure his shirt was wrinkle-free and fitting correctly, counting the cigarettes in his packet before tucking them into his pocket, checking that he had a lighter and comb somewhere on his person. This morning this took longer than usual. When he was finally put together he wanted to laugh nearly at what the mirror showed him; no trace of the previous night could be seen in his face. Well, to the casual observer at least and that was all he sought to achieve. How easy it was to fool those around you, to fool yourself. How easy for doctors and governors to be seen as pillars of the community, unquestioned. That was one thing he and his tormentors shared.

What was this all for anyway? He wasn't sure if he had much of a job to return to. If word had got out about his appearance in the pub, that coupled with his lateness and whatever the fallout from this case was, these put together might not bode very well for him.  
As he prepared to leave his bedsit, he experienced such a strong wave of longing for there to be someone here with him, anyone, that he was able only to crumple into the nearest chair in an ungainly heap, his head hanging. He thought of his family, his poor mother, who had struggled to keep not only her home and her children together, but herself too after dad had died. An accident at work but the building site had refused to accept responsibility for it, or to pay any compensation to the widow and her three children. They had to be farmed out to various relatives after mum had taken to her bed and was unable to get up again, becoming as much a child as they were. Peter had been unable to settle into this new family and spent as much time as possible away from his supposed home, getting into trouble. And then...well, he had brought it on himself, hadn't he? Idiot child, if only he'd known. 

Angry, desperate tears scalded his cheeks and he was as helpless against these as he had been against his stomach this morning, against his limbs last night. He was unable to say who or what he was crying over. He was filled with myriad thoughts and kaleidoscope like, they began as one separate thought, only to be over-laid with something else, continually changing into each other, moving circularly and experienced over brightly. He did not know how to rid himself of this. Until he could find a way to get off this twisted merry-go-round, he would just have to act as if. Like he always had before. Perhaps that was why he found himself crying, because even after last night nothing had really changed, and it never would. He didn't know when it would be but he knew that at some point in the future he would again drink himself into a heap and would once more be cleaning up after himself and putting himself back together again. Tiredness ached in every inch of him and yet somehow, he stood up, and drying his face, he left his bedsit. He smoked furiously as he made his way to the police station, flicking the butts away, checking his suit for any ash and then running his free hand over his hair as he fumbled to light another one. He reached the station, and thrusting his shoulders back, he strode up the steps and pushed the doors open, ready to find out what had happened and what had to be done.


	2. Chapter 2

Most casual observers of Peter Jakes would have likened him to a peacock. It was an easy comparison to draw; lazy, almost. The way his long body strode through the room, decked out in his perfectly put together suit and tie combinations, the extra note of colour, the almost shining head of hair, even his theatrical play with cigarette and lighter, all gave rise to an image of that flashiest of birds, strutting and preening. However, a robin would have been a much better fit, and not purely because of his bright red breast. The little robin was fierce, puffing himself up, swelling up, his feathers acting as a shield and making him bigger than he was, so as to defend his territory to the utter death. 

He sat hunched over his desk, frowning as he surveyed what work he had managed to achieve and what yet needed to be done. Cigarette butts were piled high in his ashtray as he mechanically smoked one after another, seeking that over view of the events from last night and what led to them. He knew he wouldn't come much further to figuring out a plan of action until he had grasped this. He needed a bird's eye view of the land, of the battlefield. He couldn't afford to walk into a trap as Morse had done. 

The thick haze of smoke around him kept most other officers away. Every so often he snapped out an order for a phone number, or another file, and the constables and WPCs who supplied him with the material alternately appeared flustered and nervous or reluctant and resentful. He was happy for things to stay that way. 

As one part of his mind occupied itself with the immediate work at hand, a deeper level churned over the shock of Thursday's condition and Morse's current position. Strange was nowhere to be seen and Jakes wasn't sure if he was glad the man wasn't around or whether he wanted him here so as to pump him for information or at least to watch him and try to get a read on him. Nothing was certain anymore. There was no-one he could discuss things with here. They either thought he himself was crooked- he was fully aware of the opinions some held of him- or he wasn't certain of the agenda or hidden connections others held. It was best to hang back for the next few days, to get a feel for what was happening. If at times he could fly into a rage of words and activity, at other times he could hold himself utterly still, as patient and unmoving as a heron with its long legs solidly ground in the water flashing by it, able to watch out for fish and snatch it at just the right moment. 

He knew it was stupid to look for comparisons with birds or animals. It was ridiculous to even wish to be another person, let alone a creature of another species altogether. He always sought to squash that tendency when it popped up. Perhaps Morse could afford to use Greek myths and opera heroines to explain his life but Jakes couldn't allow himself such foolish indulgence. He had had a huge weakness for it as a child. It had started with Peter Pan. He had read that story countless times, feeling special because his name was printed on the page. Peter Pan had led to other stories and those led to him taking on more and more characters. It was easy to imagine himself as a pirate, or in Narnia with the Snow Queen, or as an array of spectacular animal characters. As he got older however, he read less, finding it no longer held the same blankness of experience it had once allowed him. Books made the world too big, unmanageable, opening up a space where contemplation and memory hid between the words. He sought the sheer energy and simplicity of an adventure story, or a fantasy world. As he had entered his teens he retreated further and further from books. His school days were over and he dismissed his stories as part of childhood. He could no longer pretend to believe in those tales and so he turned his back on them, instead discovering the world of the cinema. Here were characters and events he could believe in. He went every Friday evening and sank into the darkness of the theatre, drinking up every moment of screen time. He would watch anything, Westerns, musicals, comedies, war pictures- anything. However, his two favourite actors were Liz Taylor and Monty Clift. He wished he could talk like Liz and act and look like Monty. 

He reigned his wandering thoughts in and turned to the papers in front of him once more. He looked sideways at the door to Bright's office. He was putting the moment off, he could admit that to himself. One more cigarette, then I go in, he said to himself. He instantly thought of "Now Voyager". 

He believed he could trust Bright. The Superintendent had been particularly quiet today so far, remaining mostly in his office. He had had to revise his opinion of Bright since he had mocked him for his lisp behind his back. People tended to underestimate Bright and indeed, some of his foibles and habits were easy to make fun of. Yet, Jakes had since come to feel a type of affinity with the man. Bright acted much in the same manner he did, observing, holding his own counsel. Peter knew Bright had to be working out a course of action and part of this plan must involve remaining this unobtrusive, this silent and Jakes was going to take his lead from that. 

Finishing his cigarette he got to his feet and moved towards Bright's office. He had some file or other tucked under his arm, to give the appearance of a reason for his entry into the man's quarters. 

"Come." was the reply to Jakes' sharp rap on the door. 

Bright looked up as Jakes entered, a cigarette held between two fingers. "Ah, Sergeant Jakes." 

"Sir." Wonder what he thinks of me right now. 

"Sir." He began, "I had something I'd like to say about last night." 

Bright blinked his eyes at him slowly, not reacting in any other visible manner. Peter took this as a signal to continue. 

"Morse couldn't have been the one guilty of the strangling." 

Bright tipped his cigarette against the ashtray on his table, waiting for Jakes to elaborate. 

"Morse was with me in The King's Head at that time. He only stayed for five, ten minutes at the most. But that puts him in Oxford Town at that time and he'd then have had to got out to the house."

"Well, it's a possibility. I wouldn't pin too many hopes onto it though." Bright paused. "Can you lend any weight to this claim?" 

"Yes. I have to get on to De Bryn first, find out a more precise time of death, see if we can put Morse in the clear that way. I'll go to the King's Head, see about getting a witness who can remember me and Morse there."

"Do you think you'll find one?" 

"Unfortunately, yes. I may have been quite conspicuous in my consumption. The bar man will certainly remember me." 

Bright cocked his eye brow for the briefest of moments. "Will that happen again, Sergeant Jakes?" 

"No Sir." he said, meaning it, and also knowing the next bout wouldn't happen for another couple of years if he handled himself correctly. 

"Did Morse say where he was going?" 

"Yes, we discussed it."

"You didn't go with him though." 

"No. He asked but I couldn't, physically."

Bright gave a small 'harrumph'. "Yes, well that would have only added to the mess surely, having an inebriated Sergeant waving a gun about, you could've ended up shooting Morse."

"They'd have liked that, wouldn't they?" Jakes said softly. 

Bright dropped his voice to the same level. "Do not discuss anything with anyone. Trust none of them. Do what you do best; keep your eyes and ears open, and chase up every scrap of information you catch, thoroughly and discreetly. Yes?"

"Yes Sir."

"Don't even attempt to visit or contact either Thursday or Morse." He continued. "They are both in the best place possible for them right now. Thursday's condition is serious but stable, however we are letting word circulate that it is worse than it truly is. No one can see him except close family. I need to keep Constable Morse somewhere where no one will listen to him." Bright leveled his gaze at Jakes. "There might be something in what you say about Morse being with you, however we still have the issue of getting around his scarf being found at the scene. I don't know what you can do about that, or what is even possible. Perhaps the Doc has some angle on it?" Bright raised his voice once more. "Things are bad now, but they'll soon be on the up again. Carry on Sergeant." 

Jakes nodded curtly and slipped out of the office. He returned to his desk and pushed aside the tangled ball of thread that was the case of Morse and Cowley Police Station. Merely because last night had been shattering for some didn't mean that Oxford had stopped moving and he had to continue on with other cases and daily occurrences, delegating work to others, trying to sift through it all and keep on top of it. 

The hours ticked by and he was the last one remaining in the office. He couldn't continue any longer. The hangover had faded and left him shaky. He was in need of food and rest yet neither prospect appealed to him. At least a further assault on the pubs of Oxford also held no interest for him either. He looked at the clock; nine in the evening. As he unfolded himself from his chair, he though how usually there would be another officer who would stay just as late as he would, even later often times. The two of them would sit at a right angle to one another, the two small pools of light from their desks merging and the sound of them both typing breaking the silence in the room.


	3. Chapter 3

"I do hope you won't smoke inside my lab." 

"Wasn't planning to." Jakes replied, looking around the pathologist's lab. "Wouldn't want to burn any evidence or set off a nasty chemical reaction." 

De Bryn turned towards Jakes, a smile undeniably quirking his lips. He and Jakes had never had much to do with one another outside of crime scenes and so had only a glancing knowledge of each other. Yet Peter had always thought well of the Doc, how he carried himself with such quiet authority in spite of the slightly bizarre bow-ties he chose to sport, along with the unfashionable black rimmed glasses and duffel coat. He wondered if he too felt the absence of Morse. The two of them seemed to click, enjoyed sparring verbally with one another, though the Doc was a touch more morbid and caustic than Morse. 

"How do you stick it then?" Jakes asked. "Are you not gasping for a fag after a couple of hours down here?"

"Well, I have perfected a method of leaning out of the window with a smoke. It has yet to end badly for me or the lab. Or indeed, the cigarette." He paused at the sink where he had been scrubbing his hands. "As pleasant as all this is Sergeant, I am quite sure you didn't come down here merely to check on my well-being. What can I do for you?"

"I want to look into the Standish case." 

"In what capacity?" 

"As a police officer." 

"And only that?" 

"No. As Morse's colleague."

De Bryn made no immediate response but shook the excess water form his hands and drying them off said, "Wasn't aware you were an active supporter of the man." 

"Need him around to keep me sharp, don't I." Jakes said truthfully. 

"Yes, it can be detrimental to be in the company of those who are, shall we say kindly, un-sharp." He sighed. "I would welcome Morse's return to the force. He does tend to make the day more interesting."

"Let's give you a chance then to prove you're worth that salary they pay you."

De Bryn came to stand in front of Jakes, peering up almost at the taller man. 

"First off, this can't leave the room. I talk to Bright, you talk to me."

"Pray, who would I tell? The bodies I work on? But to put your mind at ease, if I should ever have a living person to tempt me, I would remain the soul of discretion, I assure you." 

Jakes glanced at him, communicating a warning, and that he had had enough pissing about and fancy talk now thanks very much. De Bryn's expression remained serene. 

"What can we do here Doc? What are our options?"

"Well, we have two options as I see it. Either prove that someone else- and I do believe we both have the same person in mind as to our true culprit- prove that they committed the murder, or disprove that it was Morse."

"Which is the most likely to work?"

"Neither." De Bryn said baldly. 

Jakes put his hand in his trouser pocket and ran his fingers over his lighter. He had got little sleep last night and after checking in hurriedly with Bright that morning he had slipped out of the office, ostensibly to go follow up some witness statements but really to come here and pursue certain lines of enquiry which were best kept out of Cowley police station. He had been glad to leave the station, not wishing to be cramped behind his desk any longer, particularly as Strange had returned this morning. Jakes had acknolwedged him with a mere nod and glance before going past him. 

"Right. Well, what about the scarf?" Jakes suggested. "That should be our best hope, no?"

"Perhaps. Now, the fibrous quality of the item in question means it will not retain fingerprints; so that is out. Yet- are you aware of Locard's Exchange Principle?" 

"Can't say that I am, no." 

"He states that every contact between two surface areas will leave a trace."

"So, we're saying there could be traces of the scarf where there shouldn't be or there should be traces of Deare where there shouldn't be."

"Precisely." 

"Did you process the scarf?"

"Yes Sergeant, and I had this in mind as I did so. I have stored away, in a very secure place, unreachable to a certain brotherhood I hope, some hairs I managed to extract from the scarf. It is also frightfully advantageous to us that Deare is dead as he put up no protest when I took some hairs from his head." 

Jakes nearly smiled at this, envisioning the Doctor almost delightedly taking the hairs. 

"Now it is by no means water-tight but if we get some hairs from Constable Morse's head we could try and establish exactly whose hairs are on our scarf."

"So we could say that not only Morse's hair is present, but Deare's too." Max nodded at this. "Well, Morse and Deare do have similar hair colour." Jakes mused, picturing the two of them. "But Morse's hair is curlier and it's more red really than Deare's."

"Is it really Sergeant Jakes?" 

Peter tossed his head. He would have cheerfully told the Doc to fuck off but he was already enjoying himself too much and he didn't want to add to it.

"In any case, we need to discount another person. There are black hairs I pulled from the scarf too." De Bryn looked pointedly at Jakes. 

"I'll have a ring round of Morse's acquaintences." He managed to get out. "After that, what do we do? Check Deare's car for scarf traces, check Standish's home for traces of Deare?"

"That would be the next logical step. And also you will have to get those hairs from Morse."

"Right, right." Jakes said vaguely. Even if Bright hadn't told him to avoid any contact with Morse, Peter still would not have gone to see him in prison. It was too dangerous, certainly. He could imagine Morse launching into an indignant rant about how he was being framed and how to get him out. The bugger wouldn't realise he needed to shut up and let Peter pass as quietly as possible. He needed to appear neutral at the very least.  
He didn't like prisons either. Most corporation buldings had that effect on him. He could barely tolerate the police station itself most days. Yet he had no clue as to what environment he would choose to replace it with if he had that power. 

"I've got the car outside. Let's go." 

"Blenheim Vale. I can't." 

He clenched his fist around the lighter in his pocket. If he had to think about that, about that night and Blenheim Vale all those years ago, it would not be here and it would not be now. It had to be at night, alone in his bedsit. It had to be on his own terms. Not now. He was not ready to see Morse yet. Morse's eyes could hide nothing and having allowed himelf to finally tell someone about Blenheim Vale he did not want to see what would be apparent in them, and how he would think of Jakes differently. If Morse didn't see him for long enough they could perhaps both forget about the details of the last time they met. 

"So, let's say we get the hair and evidence that it IS Deare's hair on the scarf and there is some trace of him in Standish's place, what then? It's not enough."

"Clearly. What we'd do then is look into fingerprints but you'll have to leave that to the experts. I.e. moi. However, I do recommend that you take to carrying a roll of sellotape around with you, in case." 

"In case of what?" 

"In case you get the opportunity to lift any prints off a glass or some such other implement. If we want to compare finger prints we need to have something to compare them with. I may have taken the liberty of printing Deare. He was most co-operative in that area. So I have his prints here, again stored safely, but I need the prints from the scene of the crime. Just stick it on, whip it off, preserve it and then get it to me as soon as possible."

"Right. So if we can put those two together, we'll have enough to demand an investigation."

"I dare say. Because if we can't launch an investigation, all that evidence will be utterly inadmissable." 

"One last thing. Time of death on Deare. Can you get it as specific as possible? If you can, there's a chance we can alibi Morse out of this."

"Sergeant, I can only suggest a time frame I'm afraid."

Jakes had nearly forgotten how much the pathologist hated to gave a narrow frame of time for when death occurred. "Could you perhaps make an exception, just this once? I promise we won't mention it when writing up the triumphs of your career."

"For Morse, I wouldn't compromise my work principles. But if it does anything to expose those who have systematically abused children and then covered it up, well, I will gladly sell off my principles for that."

Jakes nodded and didn't know what to say to De Bryn.

He left the building, pausing to light his cigarette before making his way back to the police station. He brooded on the different threads that needed to be followed up- hairs, finger prints, alibis...and the others he had yet to pursue and were only half formed thoughts just now- Tommy Cork's statements, if they could get it, putting Chard at the scene of attempting to kill Morse, fingering Deare and his cronies for murdering George Aldridge. Immediately however he had to wrestle with the issue of getting the hair from Morse. He could think of no-one who could go in his place. He still didn't trust Strange, and Bright couldn't go or he would compromise his position. Could he ask Max? No, he dismissed the thought instantly. He would have to go himself. If De Bryn was willing to do anything necessary for this case then so was he. He would not be held back by a child's fear. He despised this fear when it came over him. Objectively he knew the prison could not hold him and yet the mere thought of going there was enough to turn him back into Little Pete. For years now he had managed to keep his Little Pete self below the surface, under control, barely noticed. Ever since the start of this case though, Little Pete came out all too easily and Jakes experienced the never forgotten sensation of how it was to stand in front of Deare, Wintergreen and Landesman, shivering and wet, humiliated and bleeding. 

"Come on, we have a chance to bury them."

That was the one thing he did allow himself to dwell on from the other night. There had been no pity in Morse's voice; he instead took what Peter had told him and sought to give him some power and agency, to be someone to stand beside him, like he had had even on the worst days in Blenheim. Perhaps if Morse was willing to do that for him, then he could do this for Morse too, to extend a hand in the dark. 

He reached the station, and sat behind his desk, noting the new piles of paperwork which had built up since he left. Bright's door banged open and there was a shout of "Sergeant Jakes" and it was shut again. Peter looked around trying to get a hint off the others as to what was happening. He saw Strange talking quietly to a dark haired girl wearing a nurse's uniform who looked quite distressed. Was Bright's call merely a cover to get Jakes into the office so he could brief the Superintendent on what had happened with De Bryn? He rose from his desk uncertainly and entered Bright's office. 

"Sergeant Jakes." He said clearly, which Jakes was quickly learning was the hint that they were talking about a subject which the station would have to know about but would also have other implications for them and Morse. 

"We have just received a call that Henry Portmore and his associates have uncovered the body of a boy at Blenheim Vale."

"Big Pete." The words escaped Jakes' mouth before he could stop himself. 

"Well, the body has not been identified yet and in any case, that would not have been the name on his birth certificate." Bright's reply snapped him back to himself and the present moment. 

"I need you down there now Sergeant. I need you to attend to the evidence." It was not lost on Peter. "I need you to ensure the interviews are conducted properly and thoroughly."

It was the tone of Bright's voice, the order allowing for no argument or questioning. He had to be there at the crime scene. He knew it himself anyway. So this is it, he thought as he shrugged into his coat. This is how I return to Blenheim Vale.


	4. Chapter 4

Peter Jakes drove to Blenheim Vale, remembering the route all too easily. He sought to focus on the events of the case and how best to handle what he knew was going to be an extremely tricky situation. He was going to need all his wits about him for this and he had to stop Little Pete from taking over.  
You didn't have it as bad as the others, you know. Only a few months there; some of the others were there for years. Go on, imagine that. Now that's something to get scared about. Years on end in Blenheim Vale. And you got out. Some of them didn't get out, did they? And some of them who did, well they're not exactly the full shilling, are they? The Blenheim you remember is gone now, so forget it, right? 

"I can't. I can't, I can't..." 

His breath caught in his throat and he found himself gasping for the next lungful.  
No. He took in another breath. No. Look at you, you are driving to Blenhim this time. You are a member of the police, a Sergeant. There is nothing anyone there can do to you. You are in charge now. You are not a bloody child. 

He pulled up in front of the dilapidated building and getting out of the car, he paused to light a cigarette and used this moment to scan the scene, keeping his back to the building. He walked towards the wooded area where he could already see uniform milling around, beginning the painful, methodical work of the crime scene. As he approached he schooled his features into a neutral expression. Only Morse knew he'd been at Blenheim Vale and he was going to do his utmost to keep it that way. He ran his free hand over his hair. All that could potentially betray him was his name turning up somewhere, which couldn't have happened yet he reasoned, otherwise he would probably be booted off the case. He touched his hair once more and came to stand beside the Doc who was kneeling beside the corpse. 

"Busy day for you, innit?"

"Indeed. I feel that my skills are for once being appreciated and exploited to their full extent."

"So, what do you reckon to it?" 

Peter looked steadily at the form which was all that remained of Big Pete. For he was certain this would prove to be the body of Big Pete. It was jarring to see how small the body before them was. Big Pete had been huge to him- he would often rest his hand on the top of his head, his palm fitting his skull like a cap. Big Pete had been able to even pick him up, which he would do sometimes when he knew Little Pete had had a particularly bad time, he would pick him up and spin around until they were both dizzy and would collapse on the grass laughing. 

"Well, all I can say for now is that this was not a natural death." He moved the head gently, indicating the spot Jakes should note. "Blunt force trauma to the head."  
Jakes nodded. They had suspected something like this back then, when Pete had disappeared. Jakes had wanted to keep up the story he had told himself when he was still Little Pete, that Big Pete had run away and was having all sorts of adventures. He had always known though; he had known how the violence they had lashed the boys with would all too easily end in death one day.  
He silently said an apology to Pete, for not having been able to help him, for having been only a stupid child. 

"Will you be able to identify him?" Jakes asked. 

"Yes. We'll have to rely on dental records but we'll find a name for him. That at least if nothing else." 

Jakes watched the Doc for a few moments, how he handled the body so carefully and with such respect. 

"What will happen to the body?"

"We have to hold it until we recommend a ruling on the death. Then we try to find a relative, someone who will claim the body, and hopefully he will finally get a decent burial."

"Hopefully." Jakes echoed palely. "Will the crime scene be much use in evidence?" 

"Sergeant, I do pride myself on my skill and expertise, however I am no Glessner Lee." 

"You what?"

"Frances Glessner Lee. Only died a few years back. You coppers are all in debt to her, she revolutionised the way crime scenes were investigated. Also, before her, a coroner did not have to have medical training. So be glad for Miss Glessner Lee, otherwise I'd be running around your crime scene with not a scrap of medical know how."

"I'll mention her in my prayers."

"Religious are we?"

"No. Who found the body?" 

De Bryn pointed off to the left and then adjusted his glasses. "I'll carry on here."

Jakes moved off slowly towards the small gang standing together in a circle. He held himself tall, squared his shoulders, allowed a slight frown to crease his brow and for his mouth to turn down a bit. There weren't many pictures of him as a boy so he could not say whether he resembled his childhood self that greatly. He himself could see no likeness to the vague images he had in his mind of a chubby-cheeked and wide-eyed kid. If Nick couldn't even remember his second name then he was counting on him not remembering his face. 

"Excuse me. Sergeant Jakes. You found the body, I've been informed." He groped for his cigarettes in his pocket, needing to not look at them. Oh God, he could see them all too clearly still, the grubby lads were so vividly in evidence in their faces it was blinding. Nick, Benny and Henry; they were the only ones left. Well, if he counted himself, then there were four. George was dead, Big Pete was dead, even Angela was dead. He looked at the woman standing beside Henry. That must be Hilary, Christ, her resemblance to her brother was so strong. He managed to light his cigarette and inhaled on it before continuing. 

"You dug up the body?"

"Yes." Nick spoke up. Jakes decided to focus on him as Benny had a glazed look on his face which made him decidedly antsy. Benny had been quiet and dreamy even as a child, spending his days making up stories, acting out all the parts himself. He seemed to have drifted even further away; Jakes couldn't blame him. 

"We knew we'd find him. It's a boy who was at Blenheim, our friend Peter..."

"We have yet to make an identification of the body, so we can't go throwing names around."

"But it IS Pete, he went missing when we were here..."

"Pete? Do you have a second name for him?" 

"Well...no." Nick said, looking at a loss, turning to his companions for guidance. 

"Why were you digging around the grounds of Blenheim Vale? Did you have permission to do that?" He directed this question at Henry. He met Jakes' enquiring gaze evenly. 

"I live just outside the grounds. I got permission to start a dig here. I'm a lecturer, you see. Of course, I was told to shut it down soon after that, which in itself was a reason to continue. Pete had gone missing, like Nick said, but what could we do about it then? We were just kids. So, we decided, especially after what happened to George and Angela, that we would find Pete." 

"I'll keep all that in mind." Jakes said. "I'm going to need to take down all your names and statements."

Hilary folded her arms across her chest, her pinched face drained of all colour. "We've just dug up the body of a boy, a mere boy, murdered for trying to tell the truth after being abused for a long period of time. And you just stand there, so calm and cool, telling us that we are much mistaken." She closed her eyes, and shook her head. "No wonder you," she turned to the other three, opening her eyes again. "No wonder you went and looked for Pete yourselves. The police were never going to help." she hissed. 

Henry moved closer to her but kept his gaze on Jakes. "Well, the police were part of it all, so there's no reason why they wouldn't still be covering up."

"What happened to the other officer? He understood." Nicholas asked. "Morse was his name." 

"He isn't here, is he? You'll have to deal with me."

Nicholas sighed softly, as if experiencing a sense of defeat setting in, a feeling which had never fully left him his whole life. 

"Pete?" Benny said uncertainly. 

"Look, we've already discussed this." Jakes snapped. He had to wrap this up, he had no energy left for it. If this went on much longer he feared for what he would say or do. "We cannot say anything as to the identity of the body until our pathologist has examined him."

"No." Benny said. He spoke as if he wasn't used to it, stuttering almost. "Not Big Pete. Little Pete. It is you, isn't it?" 

Jakes shook his head violently. "No. No. No, no. You'll have to come down to the station..."

But it was too late. The arrow had been fired and had hit its target. He saw recognition, shock and other emotions he could not put a name to appearing on their faces. 

"Little Pete? You became a police officer?" Nicholas asked.

Oh Christ, oh Christ, do they know it was me, do they know I gave up Pete's name, that I betrayed him? I tried not to, oh I tried so hard, but I couldn't do anything else.  
He took a step back, and then another, feeling four sets of eyes on him. 

"I'm not just a police officer, I'm a Sergeant if you don't bloody mind. I got out of this place and I got through somehow and worked my way up to Sergeant. No one calls me Pete anymore, little or otherwise." He spat, breathing hard after he had finished speaking. 

It was Henry who broke the silence. "Well bloody done."

"What?"

"Well done man. Jesus Christ, you didn't just get through." 

"Not like some of us." Benny added quietly. Nicholas looked at Jakes, a certain disbelief in his eyes, but also what looked a lot like pride. Jakes nodded back at them all. 

"But listen." Hilary pressed. "Do you mean it about Pete? Can you not do something for him?" 

"I will." He said in a low voice. "We have to identify him first and we'll go from there. This case is huge, so huge. I''m working on it but I can't do it openly. You were right about the police. But not me, not all of them. You cannot let on I was here back then, it will compromise everything."

"Can we do anything?" Hilary asked. 

"The best thing you can do is to say nothing to anyone. Talk to me about this case, no-one else. Give your statements. And if there is anything else, I'll contact you. Don't try and fix this yourselves. You can't." 

"We'll do that." Hilary said. "If we get ready to go down to the station, will you be able to meet us there?" 

Jakes nodded and Nicholas, Benny and Hilary began to move off towards the house. Henry stayed with Peter. 

"Can I come with you? You probably need to talk to me first anyway since the dig was my idea." 

"Yeah. Yeah, sure, right." 

\------------------

They didn't speak much until Jakes had begun driving back to the station. The sun hung low in the sky. The morning seemed as if it had been years ago and Peter knew night time was still far off for him. 

"How did you do it?" Henry asked. 

"Do what?" 

"Survive. Get to where you are now." 

"I just did."

"You're more like Big Pete than I ever realised." Jakes said nothing. It was as if he had fallen into a parallel universe, where it was normal to hear those names thrown about casually, referred to as real people; where it was normal that others knew what had happened, and had had it happen to themselves too. 

"Big Pete was the strongest of us. No wonder he was our leader. You were so young, I guess we all thought..." Henry trailed off. "But you made it. George didn't. Ed didn't either. A petty criminal and a suicide, that was all they could manage. And then there's Benny. I find it hard to talk to him. It's not his fault but still. It's like watching a living death. He'll never recover  
"Like you, work was my salvation. Applied myself at school, learned somehow to replace the bad memories with good ones. Met Hilary. Fell in love. Was loved in return. And now our baby...and I work somewhere where I can offer young minds an alternative, give them knowledge, sharpen them up, make sure they have choices. I can see why you became a police officer." 

"I also joined the Police because I'm better than them." He mumbled. "I'm a better officer than they ever were. I'm bloody good at this job." 

"Just don't let history repeat itself."

"Same to you mate."

 

\-----------------------------

Peter closed the door behind him. He was finally in his bedsit at near to eleven p.m. that night. Taking statements from Nick and the others had taken the rest of the evening, which was followed by another quick report to Bright. He lay down to sleep and he found himself wondering where they all were right now. Henry had already put the baby to sleep and was putting away the last of the essays he had to mark before climbing into bed beside Hilary and kissing her shoulder. Nicholas was probably similar to him, the last to leave work and returning to a small flat, not a home, merely a place to snatch a few hour's rest before vacating it once more. Benny was probably finishing up his show, packing away that dreadful doll, sitting alone in his dressing room.  
He wished he could've dealt with Benny better. With the others he had been able to work with them, to ask questions and probe for details; they had been able almost to turn it into a business affair, an exchange of information for a greater gain. Benny however, clearly wished he could help but seemed unable to in spite of himself. It was as if merely assisting in the digging had taken all of his courage and will power and now all he wished to do was retreat and be left alone to mouth hollow phrases out of another mouth, over and over. Though Peter worked to protect those most vulnerable he was somehow unable to deal with them easily. He could do his job, which was to put away those who were hurting them but if he had to sit down and talk with them one on one it was awkward and stilted and invariable went wrong. He often studied Thursday and how he had such a easy way with others; he knew though he couldn't imitate it. Seeking to force such a manner with others was to ensure it wouldn't work.  
He tried to put Benny Topling out of his mind and pulled the blanket up around him, hoping he would fall asleep easily tonight. 

He thought of Morse then. How was prison treating him? One thing was for certain- he wasn't settling down or fitting in. He was a porcupine and even if he liked another person all he ever did was flatten his quills temporarily but kept them ready if he needed to raise them again at a moment's notice.  
He would've welcomed being able to discuss the case with Morse. It was so hopeless, trying to nail Deare and clear Morse's name. He needed the man's crackpot ideas, his flights of fancy. He lay in the dark and tried to approach the case the way Morse would. Though able to catch onto Morse's ideas and follow and add to them, he had not quite reached the stage where he could create such avenues of thought himself. 

"Come on. We've got a chance to bury them, all of them."

He still though of that moment, Morse's large eyes fixed fully on him, truly meaning what he said, seeing no reason why the two of them couldn't bury all those in Blenheim. The tilted head, the slight curve of his lips and almost wink, encouraging, conspiring; he reminded him of Big Pete then, the way he used to include Peter in the other boys' games, even though he was younger than them. He sank into a deep sleep, deciding he would find time tomorrow to visit Morse.


	5. Chapter 5

Morse sat on the bottom bunk in his cell, his chin cradled in his hands, his elbows on his knees, looking for all the world like a bored child. His fingers rested on either side of his face and he had his head tilted to the side, looking up; at nothing in particular, he just had his gaze trained in that direction. 

Jakes observed him silently as he waited for the prison guard to exert himself to unlock the barred door. Morse didn't stir until the door began to creak open. 

"Visitor for you. Don't think it's a social call though." 

He shuffled off but Jakes was quite aware he was acting more benign than he really was. This moving off was for appearance's sake only and every word of their conversation would be noted and passed on as needed. 

Jakes briefly touched the back of his neck before shoving his hands into his pockets and stepping into the cell with Morse. Morse jerked to his feet, his eyes wide and mouth open. Jakes nodded at him sharply, wanting this moment to be over. 

"Finally." Morse said, an eye-roll barely suppressed. 

"Sorry?" 

"I've been here nearly a week, it's high time I bloody got out of here." 

"Morse, for Christ's sake, I am not here to collect you." Jakes snorted. 

Morse's brow furrowed and his mouth twitched slightly, a look of distaste spread across his face. "Well when AM I getting out? Or have I been forgotten about? They can't seriously be managing to make these ridiculous claims stick?" His voice grew louder as he spoke and Jakes realised this was for the benefit of the third unseen member of their conversation. 

"Yeah, well this is the best place for you." He gave Morse a meaningful look before adding, "Jail's usually where they keep those who kill their own." 

Morse flushed red. "I'm not a bloody bizzie Jakes!"

"You what?" He had been about to deck the git upside the head for not copping on to what he was saying and not saying. But this was a new one- the Oxford accent had slipped, revealing something stronger hidden underneath which Jakes couldn't quite place. The slang was jarring too. He tucked this information away to mull over at another time. 

"Morse." He stepped closer to the other man. Oh boy, if looks could kill...At least this was one way to ensure that what had been discussed the last time they had met wouldn't come up between them. Morse was so spitting mad he could only be focused on his own plight and nothing else. 

"I need to get a few hairs off of you." If it was possible, Morse appeared further outraged by this. 

"I need it to clear the name of someone who's been wrongly accused." Jakes said slowly and deliberately, in a low tone. 

Morse stiffened and fixed Jakes with a searching gaze. He used this as an oppportunity to reach his hand up and pluck one or two (or three) hairs from Morse's head. 

"Christ..." Morse winced and then shook his head free from a smirking Jakes. 

"On orders from the good Doctor. Have to clear Deare's name of slander, don't we?" 

Morse momentarily came out of his sulk. "How's Thursday?"

Inwardly Jakes winced at the lie he had to tell. "Still in a critical condition, but stable. For now. Only close family can visit." Thursday in fact was recovering slowly, the threat of infection being the greatest worry for the doctors. This much he had learned from Bright. He could already picture how furious Morse would be with him when he discovered that he had been lied to, even after Jakes explained that it had been for his own good. Morse didn't like things that were meant to be good for him, Peter had come to note. 

Silence fell for a few moments and Jakes could only stand there, not really knowing what he could safely say next. 

"Well, what about the investigation? I assume you're playing an active role in it."

"County job, innit. Nothing to do with us. Be a bit awkward, me investigating a colleague, wouldn't it? Not that I wouldn't enjoy it, mind you." 

Morse sat back down on the bed, scowling. "Are you done yet?" He threw at Jakes. 

"Wouldn't want to outstay my welcome. Keep an open spot in your diary for another visit, yeah?" He called for the warden before Morse could say anything else. 

\-----------------------------

"Got something for you." Jakes said to DeBryn, after checking there was no one else present. The stocky pathologist turned to him, a look of mild curiousity on his face. Jakes pulled a length of sellotape from his pocket which he had stuck Morse's hairs onto. 

"Ah. Just what I've been looking for."

He neatly took the sellotape from Jakes' fingers and moved off, showing the other man his back as he busied himself with this new item. Jakes leaned up against a counter to the left of the Doc and watched him work. He was humming to himself tunelessly, utterly absorbed in the task. Another thing he had in common with Morse. He could easily see how DeBryn and Morse understood each other so well. And yet, this cameraderie hadn't translated into a friendship outside of work. Perhaps they were too similar. It was difficult enough to talk to Morse when he was on a case; imagine the Doc and Morse sitting together in a pub, hardly noticing each other at all, their minds elsewhere. They wouldn't mind that though, was the funny thing, they wouldn't have to apologise for what others would see as rudeness. 

"Was there anything else Sergeant or were you watching me work for your own personal pleasure and entertainment?" 

"Well, I need to give myself a break from time to time and watching you play with your science set is as good a way as any." 

This earned him a sideways glance and quarter raised eye brow which Jakes understood as a positive reaction. Well, if the Doc was happy enough to accept him as a temporary substitute for Morse then that was a role Jakes was willing to take on. In many ways that was how he felt as he went about his work, especially his clandestine investigation, that he was a stand in for Morse at the station and in an odd way he had to be his own replacement for Morse, imagining the other man was there so they could pick through the evidence together. That was one reason he wanted Morse back, so he could return to being his own person again. 

"However," Jakes began. "I was wondering if you had got any further on the precise time of death for Deare." He chose the word specifically to irritate Max and remind him how he was going against his usual set ways. He wasn't disappointed with the long-suffering look DeBryn let pass over his face. 

"Well. My job has been made slightly easier, and my findings more reliable, by the fact of Deare, presumably, being so eager for Morse to be thrown into the chokey as soon as humanly possible." 

"How so?" 

"Deare, again we presume this, tipped off the police somehow as to the fact that Standish was no longer breathing and this meant emergency services were on the scene very quickly indeed." 

"And the sooner you get to a body after death, the easier it is to say with certainty when death took place." Jakes gestured at the Doc, for him to confirm this. 

"Indeed Sergeant. So, I checked with those attending the scene and they put the body as having been dead for twenty minutes before they arrived. Of course, we have to allow for human error."

"Do you agree with them though?" 

"Yes, I would. Tentatively Sergeant - and I will have you know I have not undertaken anything tentatively in my life so far- I put the time of death at 9:30 p.m. We have to allow though thirty minutes either side, just to cover myself, so no earlier than 9 p.m. and no later than 10 p.m."

"I have to work with the frame of a whole hour? Christ, I need to pin it down more than that." 

"Well forgive me for being so very presumptuous, but isn't that where police work comes into it? I give you so much and you get witnesses and such to back it up? But it wouldn't be for me to presume to tell you how to do your job. Unless my powers have been extended to that of a police officer, without my having been aware of it?" 

Jakes wondered to himself how the Doc had faired in interviews and the Viva for his exams on the way to becoming a pathologist. He could only imagine how the dons had coped with this man's answers. 

"I suppose what I really meant to say was thanks and much appreciated."

"How was Morse?" 

"Unchanged."

Max smirked slightly. "Glad to hear that." 

 

\-------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Jakes sat behind his desk, feeling as if he never left it. He had waited until the station had emptied of all other officers and now his table was covered in files and papers, all the information pertaining to the Standish case, which he was rifling through. He was currently trying to pinpoint the movements of the key players involved on that particular night. 

He leaned back in his chair, attempting to blow smoke rings, a feat he had never been able to master in spite of his extensive practice. 

"You're here late." 

He turned at the sound of Strange's voice. He approached Jakes' desk and sat on the edge of it. 

"What has you here so late?" 

"Just trying to get some paperwork done, keep one up on the others, you know how it is." 

Jakes still wasn't sure how to handle Strange. A good officer by all accounts, determined, willing to muck in but not the most imaginative or indeed diplomatic person in the uniform. He had heard rumours of his being in with a certain crowd and he had an unquestioning attitude to authority which didn't sit too well with Jakes.

"Did you see the girl I was talking to yesterday?" Strange went on. What was all this about? Did the man want him to make up a four or something? 

"I think I saw you alright, yeah. Was she a nurse?" 

"That's her. Monica. Morse's girlfriend apparently. I don't know if you knew about her? I didn't. Just like him not to tell anyone."

Jakes lit another cigarette and watched Strange as he spoke. 

"Since none of us knew about her she didn't know what had happened when Morse didn't come home. She had Thursday's number and of course, no answer there either. She eventually made it in here. I didn't enjoy having to tell her what had gone on."

"How did she react?"

Strange blew out through his lips. "Angry. Very, very angry. Wouldn't accept the charges at all." He craned his head around. "Smart woman. Gorgeous too. But smart. I wouldn't cross her. I don't think that'll be the last we hear of her either." 

"Did you take her details?" 

"Yes, why?" 

"I don't know." Jakes snapped. "Maybe I'll ask her out and comfort her, you know what I mean? Bloody hell, why do you think I asked."

"You mean if she could help with Morse's alibi, unfortunately not. She didn't see him that evening at all." 

Jakes paused in smoking. "Why would you be interested in an alibi for Morse?" 

Strange seemed a litte cast down by this comment. "I know it's hard to be sure who to trust in this place at the moment. But Morse is my mate." He peered down at Jakes earnestly. "He's always been decent to me. I wouldn't turn my back on him. I just didn't realise how things would turn out."

"You mean with the Freemasons?" 

"Did Morse tell...?"

"No, he didn't. Everyone knows anyway. It's very difficult to keep anything secret here, learn that lesson very quickly Strange."

"I only went along to that meeting...look, it seemed like a way to get a leg up, right? You understand that. I didn't seem to be getting anywhere fast on my own."

Jakes stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. 

"Strange. You know you probably did pass your Sergeant's? But you passed, I'd say, just about, scraped though. They would've gone through it again to mark you down so that you failed. They don't like borderline passes. It's not good enough. They also want to see how you react. Are you going to go for it again, how are you going to be at work, so on. They don't want people to just pass these things otherwise we'd be flooded with half-competent Sergeants. If you didn't pass it's not that you didn't work hard, just not quite enough." 

Strange nodded. "That's fair enough. I hadn't even considered that. I guess we're not in school anymore."

"I don't know how much you're involved with that brotherhood, but if you can, get out. Honestly. It seems like a good idea now but you'll regret it one day, not having got ahead through your own work. You'll be indebted to someone and they don't act as a charity, you know. One day, they'll expect something in return. It mightn't be now but one day they will and it won't be small either."

"That's just what Morse said to me. You can't serve two masters. Well. He more shouted it at me and chucked a newspaper at me before storming off to Blenheim Vale."

"You what? When were you talking to Morse?" Jakes sat forward. 

"He came here, saying Thursday was in trouble, asking me to get all the officers I trusted out to Blenheim. I said I couldn't." Strange looked uncomfortable admitting this. "And then he yelled at me, threw the newspaper and stalked out." 

"What time was this? Was there anyone else around?" 

"There were some work men here. They'd probably remember him quite well since he made such a racket. And the time..." Strange shook his head. "It was definitely after 8:30, that was what time it was when I last checked, but it was before nine because I left the station then." 

"DeBryn says the time of death on Standish is 9:30 p.m., give or take a half hour each side to cover himself. Morse would have to drive to the King's Arms from here, and he talked with me for ten minutes in the pub and then he left to drive to Blenheim Vale."

"Which is in the opposite direction to Standish's house." Strange pointed at the map. 

"So the timelines then would be," Jakes folded his arms on the desk and leaned in closer to the map. "Morse leaves Cowley Station before 9:00 p.m. By the latest he's at the King's Arms for 9:05 p.m., at the outside. Ten minutes there, about. Which gives him fifteen minutes to get from here," He jabbed at the map. "To here."

"Even at top speed he couldn't. Even give him ten minutes outside of that. He couldn't get to Standish's and then strangle him. Strangling takes time, there's a struggle. It's not bang bang, you're dead, and walk straight out."

"Even if we then say he WAS at Standish's house at that time somehow, for argument's sake, he couldn't have made it out to Blenheim Vale in time. He wouldn't have been there for the show down and he wouldn't have been there for his own arrest." 

Jakes picked up a pencil and bit the end of it, hard. He sat musing over the logistics of it all. Could it be enough? He bit the pencil again before realising what he was doing and let it drop, his mouth grimacing in disgust. Strange had pulled up a chair beside Jakes and took a black notebook from his pocket. He flicked to a fresh page and began scribbling. 

"You better make sure no one sees that." 

"Oho, I will. I need to write it down though. I can't hold it all in my head." He gave Jakes a look as if he was mental for even imagining such a possibility. Jakes refrained from retorting to that one. 

"First chance I get tomorrow, I'll head to the King's Arms, then track down the workers who were here that night. Once we have our witness statements, and I draw up the different time lines and routes the cars could've taken, that with DeBryns's reports should put Morse nowhere near Standish."

"Well, I can take on some of that too. Double check things, get the files from the Doc, y'know."

"Thanks." Strange sounded a bit surprised. 

Jakes nodded. "Go talk to Bright tomorrow. In private. Once he knows that you're working on this he'll make sure you have time to get to those witnesses."

"We've got a long couple of days ahead of us, eh?" 

Jakes smiled lightly. "Too right." 

"And what are we doing it for? For someone who'll tell us he could've done it quicker himself, I'm sure."

Jakes closed his eyes for a moment, wanting only to be back in his little bed sit, where everything was neat and in order, where he knew where everything was. He hated when anything was out of place, he couldn't rest properly until everything was returned to where it usually was. 

"Drink?" 

"Sorry?" 

"D'yeh want to get a pint?" 

"Nah." Jakes shook his head. The thought of booze was still enough to turn his stomach. 

"A cuppa then?" 

"Alright." 

Stranged appeared pleased. "How do you take it?" 

"Black, two sugars." 

"Right." Before setting off, Strange leaned in closer. "I also have a stash of ginger nuts that no one knows about. Will I break 'em out?" 

Jakes nodded only for fear of snorting if he tried to say anything. The constable meant well. He lit up another cigarette. He was excited about breaking his friend out of prison; Strange, that is. Jakes was just pleased that the next time he and Morse were the only ones working late that they would be able to take advantage of a secret supply of biscuits.


	6. Chapter 6

Peter inhaled on his cigarette, a cigarette which in all honesty he hadn't really wanted. He hardly ever reached such a level of nicotine saturation. However today he had chain smoked his way from the station to the prison and he continued to smoke as he stood beside Morse, waiting for him to gather his scant personal items together and sign the necessary forms to make his release official. Morse was pulling on his coat, not doing up the buttons, stuffing his things back into his pockets, grabbing the forms and pen roughly, scrawling his name before pushing them away again. He turned sharply to face Jakes, expectant and impatient. Jakes nodded to the prison wardens and then jerked his head at Morse to follow him. 

They settled themselves into the car and Jakes was glad of having the task of driving to focus on; the gears, the road ahead of him, the traffic around him. These past two weeks he had been focused so utterly on getting Morse out of prison that he had not paused to consider what would happen once he was free again. He had enjoyed Bright's reaction certainly, as he sat behind his desk listening to him and Strange, detailing what they had carefully put together. Bright had allowed a thin smile to touch his mouth before unfolding himself and leaning back in his chair, saying "Yes, yes, excellent.", appearing like a bird of prey, huddled up on a branch, ruffling and settling his feathers. 

Now Morse was seated beside him, staring vacantly out the window. The sky was already dark and dull, the short January day having scarcely lasted into the afternoon. 

"Do you want me to drop you off at your place?" 

"Yes. But before that, could we stop here?" 

They were drawing up to an off-licence. Well, Morse was consistent, he'd give him that. After two weeks in prison, he could guess at the state the man was in. He didn't even want to contemplate suddenly being denied his smokes, uncertain of when he could have them again. He pulled up across the road from the offie and waited for Morse to get out. 

"Can I borrow the money off you?" 

"You what?" 

"As you can imagine, I didn't realise I was going to be thrown into jail and so I don't have that much money on me, and certainly not enough for a bottle of Scotch." 

"Unbelievable." Jakes muttered as he took out his wallet and handed Morse a note. 

"Thanks."

"Yeah, well I've been meaning to support more charities." 

"Does that mean I don't have to pay you back?" 

Before Jakes could respond Morse had got out of the car and smartly clicked the door shut behind him. 

 

\-------------------------------------------

"Well, here you are then." 

Jakes rested his fingers on the steering wheel, ready to drive off again once Morse removed himself. The other man didn't budge however. The harsh light from the street lamp shone through the window, highlighting the lines around Morse's eyes and the hollowness of his cheeks, how his mouth pulled down of its own accord. He sat, hunched over slightly in his worn out suit. He lifted his head and turned away from Jakes, his left hand on the door handle, his right curled around the brown paper bag containing his booze. 

"Would you like to have a drink?" 

Jakes glanced at his watch. He was officially off work for the day; picking up Morse had been one last task before he finished. 

"Alright then. I did pay for it, in fairness."

He killed the engine and followed Morse into his building. He had his key out and was about to open the door, when something seemed to stop him.

"Just a moment."

He went to the door across the way from his and knocked on it. After waiting a long minute and rapping on the door again, Morse came back to his own bedsit and let them both in. He set the Scotch on the table and rifled through the contents on his desk for a scrap of paper and a pen. He wrote something on it quickly, standing and then left the flat for a minute. Jakes angled his head casually and saw him putting it under the mystery door. He took the chance to open the window and let in some much needed fresh air. Apart from the stuffy atmosphere, the flat was otherwise clean, the bed made and the sink empty. He doubted Morse had done any of that on the morning before he was arrested. It must have been the work of Monica, the elusive girlfriend. But had she only come back the once to take care of the housekeeping? Come to think of it, where was she? Why wasn't Morse with her? Surely they'd be excited to be reunited. Still, he wasn't about to ask. 

Morse had returned and retrieved two glasses from the cupboard before pouring out two generous measures. 

"How did you manage it?" He asked, seating himself on the couch where Jakes had just taken up position, and handed him his glass. 

"You mean get you out?" 

Morse nodded and then raised his glass up, waiting for Jakes to do the same. "Thanks. You know." 

Jakes lifted his glass to Morse but didn't clink them together, merely hinted at the action before taking a large mouthful of the liquid. He could hardly taste the Scotch. His taste buds had been deadened by his smoking habit. He could still appreciate the feel of it warming him as he swallowed it.  
He told Morse about how he and Bright had worked together, the confidential meetings to discuss their strategy and progress. He talked about the Doc and enjoyed watching Morse's reactions to things Max had said and also how he had got him to go against his usual principle and give a precise time of death. He talked about Strange returning to the fold and helping him to shoulder the fiddly, slow work. He outlined how things stood with the Standish case so far and what they could legitimately do. As he talked, he considered when and how he should bring up the issue of Thursday, and decided not to. It could wait until tomorrow. He wasn't in the mood for facing a righteous and outraged Morse. He also did not want to think too much about Thursday until he knew he could visit him. He had to store it away, put it in another compartment for the moment, otherwise he would find work just that bit more difficult. 

For each glass Jakes drank, Morse drained two. The bottle was already half empty. Jakes put his glass down, sickeningly reminded of the state he had allowed himself to fall into two weeks previous. 

It was strange to be sitting here with Morse. In spite of what they were discussing, Morse still hadn't indicated by way of a look or a gesture or a word that he remembered or was thinking about what Jakes had told him that night, told him almost in spite of himself. Not that he wanted the man to bring it up but he had always thought if anyone were to ever learn about Blenheim Vale and what happened there, he would forever have to see it in their faces, and watch their eyes fill with the imaginings and implications every mind grubbed over no matter how desperately they tried not to. Morse was not looking at him in any markedly altered manner. 

"Where do we go now?" He said to Jakes, reaching for the bottle once again. 

Jakes opened his packet of cigarettes; two left. "Well, now that you're out and we can clear your name, that means we can work on trying to get Deare for it."

"What about the others?" The end of the 'what' was slightly slurred. Morse had noticed this himself for he had sat up straighter and sought to enunciate his next sentence more carefully and it was this cautiousness which gave him away. "Can we not get them as well?" 

"I doubt it. I honestly doubt it."

"But what about Big Pete?" 

"So far all the Doc has been able to get is that it was a violent death, fatal blow to the head. But how can we get evidence for it? He's been buried for more than a decade." 

"But surely the area must have retained something we can use?" 

"Morse. Even if I were Glessner Lee, I couldn't get any more evidence than we have." 

"Glessner who?" 

"Frances Glessner Lee. She died a couple of years back. She revolutionised how crime scenes were handled. Before her a pathologist did not have to have medical training. You should be extremely grateful to her." 

Morse said nothing and Jakes didn't even attempt to stop himself from experiencing such a childish sense of victory at this moment. 

"Has anyone claimed the body yet?" Morse asked quietly. 

"No."

"I always hated seeing gravestones where the writing had worn off, or there were cracks in it, and you could no longer read the person's name. They are not just gone from living memory, but even as a cursory name you could read and forget again as you walked by." 

Morse sank further back into the couch, a slumped figure, his lids half-closed. 

"He hasn't been forgotten, Morse."

The man stirred lightly, and opened his eyes blearily. 

"I got a phone call at the station the other day." 

It had been Henry; Jakes had nearly cut him off instantly before he received assurances that he just wanted to ask something about Big Pete, nothing to do with any "ongoing investigations". The last thing their paper-thin case needed was for someone to hear him on the phone to the other boys from Blenheim or to have the call traced at another time. Hearing Henry's voice on the phone had been a shock in itself. He didn't want to receive such shocks and he also didn't want to know and accept how he reacted to such occurences. 

"What?" He had snapped into the phone. 

"Has anyone claimed Pete's body?"

"No. No-one."

"And you probably don't expect anyone to either?"

"No." Jakes had searched for any link to Big Pete's family, trying to contact those listed as his guardians at the time he was sent to Blenheim. But there was no-one to be found. Only a few yellowed sheets detailed the report of a missing boy which had led to nothing. 

"If no-one does claim Pete, when everything is over, I just wanted to let you know, that we'd like to cover the cost of Pete's burial." 

He knew who was meant by "we"- Henry, Hilary, Nicholas and Benny. 

"I'll make a note of that. And...I don't want my name anywhere but if I could give you money to cover a share of the costs...?" 

"Of course Peter." 

He didn't miss the other boys necessarily. Too much time had passed for them to ever be friends and the others had shared too much together in that time for him to become a part of their group. He didn't mourn or regret this lost opportunity, anymore than he mourned or regretted Blenheim Vale. It was an event, a fact which he was powerless to change. 

Morse slopped another measure into his glass. All around was silence- there was no movement on the street outside and Jakes could hear no one else in the building. 

"There's some things you've neglected to examine." 

"Oh yeah." This should be good. "Such as?"

"Tommy Cork." 

Jakes shook his head and stubbed out his cigarette, determined that that was the last one before leaving. He only had one cigarette left and he needed to conserve it until he got home where he had a stash of smokes. 

"Too unreliable. Says he can't remember how he got out there. Even if we could get him to make some sort of statement it would be ripped to pieces and the boy would crack under the pressure and being questioned over and over. He doesn't need that." 

"Chard, then." Jakes saw Morse's mouth curl slightly as he spoke the name, making him ugly. "He tried to kill me and he's been involved in this since Deare was at Blenheim. He's been covering up for years and years and he's continuing to cover up." 

"Yeah, and he's also about to get promoted." 

Morse rubbed his fingertips across his brow and then rested his chin in the palm of his hand, his elbow propped up on the armrest. 

"Look, I know what he did, you know what he did, but we can't prove it. We have a fighting chance for Deare. The others though," Jakes shook his head. "it won't fly. The gun Chard had, it probably didn't belong to him. I doubt he was stupid enough to fire on you with a gun that could be traced back to him using the bullets that stuck in the car. Anyway, if you go after Chard no-one will take you seriously."

That was probably the wrong thing to say. If there was one way to goad Morse it was to dismiss him out of hand. 

"I just mean that you and Chard have history. You made him look a fool on the strangler case. He would jump at the chance to discredit you further." 

"I don't understand the world sometimes. I'm no longer shocked by it. Doesn't mean I'll understand it. Or accept it." 

"Let this battle go, Morse. Get him another time, further down the line."

Please, he silently added. Please let us get Deare. 

Jakes made to stand up. 

"If I still have a job at the station..." Morse muttered. 

Jakes scoffed. "Of course you still have a job. Bright's there, remember?" 

"How are we meant to investigate this though?" 

"With extreme caution." Jakes stated. "We can't have brass know that you're working on the Standish case. They'd throw you off it soon as. Or they mightn't; if they heard you were working to get Deare done for the murder they tried to put on you, they'd cry out that you were biased and again, any evidence attached to it would be dismissed." 

"So I have to work in the shadows and hope for the best." 

"That's what I've been doing so far." 

He waited for Morse to use the obvious counter-argument on him, that by this reasoning Peter himself shouldn't be on the case, being at least equally biased as Morse. It was all a question of appearances and which story people believed. No-one knew about him and Blenheim Vale so as far as they were concerned, there was no problem with him being on the case. Jakes sometimes recoiled at how close his line of work came to the murky area the corrupt officers they were investigating had moved in. 

He glanced over at him as he continued to remain quiet. He experienced a flicker of warmth in his chest over Morse's refraining from hurling this accusation at him which rang all too loudly in his own ears. He was doing the right thing here, wasn't he? His judgement was clear and he was pursuing the investigation correctly and to the full of his abilities. He had to believe that. 

He got to his feet this time and went over to Morse. His eyes had closed and he had tipped further sideways. He took the glass from his other hand which was resting bonelessly in his lap. He placed the receptacle on the table and put his hands on Morse's shoulders. 

"I have to leave. And you should go to bed." 

Morse made some indecipherable noise indicating protest. 

"Come on, on your feet." 

He put his hands under Morse's armpits and hoisted him up. He stumbled and put his hand on Jakes' upper arm, propping himself up. Jakes kept his hold on him and Morse shook his head as if to shake himself out of his stupor. Jakes made to shift Morse to his bed when the other man held his arm tighter, almost hurting, and looked directly at him. 

"We're going to get Deare." His large eyes held his and he found himself looking into deep pools of blue, tinged with exhaustion and a quiet, yet unrelenting, desperation. He didn't pull back from this, and instead stayed holding up Morse, simply taking in what he had said. He thought, as he so often did, of what Morse had offered to him that night. "Come on. We've got a chance to bury them." A small smile bloomed on Peter's lips. 

"Yeah, alright Morse, stop going all Three Musketeers on me." He struggled for a moment. He wanted to say yes, yes, they would get Deare. "I can't. I can't." An all too-familar voice whined at him. 

"We'll get him." Morse repeated as if sensing what Peter couldn't say. Jakes nodded and mouthed a yes, and he received a slight smile in return to match his own. He moved his hands and pushed Morse ahead of him. He fell onto the bed, simply lying on his back on the mattress, again on the verge of passing out. 

"Do you do this regularly?" Jakes asked as he removed the man's shoes. Oh, he'd keep this back as ammunition for another time. "Drink until you fall asleep?" 

Morse made a non-committal noice which translated as "sometimes". He tugged the blanket out from under him and managed to half-cover him with it. 

"Thank you." He murmured. 

"Don't get used to it. I won't be here to put you to bed every time." 

"No. I meant for having a drink." 

"It was more than one drink, you know." 

"...was glad of the company." He was only barely able to make out what Morse was saying, nonetheless it hit him with great force. The man was lonely. Two weeks in jail must have been spent in isolation, the other inmates not wanting to engage with a cop killer, and Morse unable to know what to say or how to say it, deciding for once in his life he should just keep his mouth shut. Was the time he visited to get the hairs the only proper interaction he'd had in two weeks? He must have been so relieved to have that small reminder of what his usual life used to resemble. 

He stood at the side of Morse's bed, watching the man as he slipped into slumber, lines dug into his face even in repose. Images came to his mind, unbidden, of a small chubby-cheeked child ascending the staircase in the darkened halls and moving silently through the dorm, finding his bed and staying under the blankets unmoving, hoping it would hurt less that way. No-one would approach him, knowing what had happened and not knowing what to do. Little Pete didn't know what he wanted either; he sometimes hoped he could discover an island where there would never be another person again after being trapped in the too small island of the backseat of Wintergreen's car. Simultaneously he experienced a pain, like a wound that had been reopened over and over, he felt such a pain to have something he could clutch onto, without knowing who this longed for figure could be. 

"Goodnight." He said and closed the bedsit door behind him. When he was outside, he paused to light up his remaining cigarette. The late night air was bracing after the enclosed atmosphere of the bedsit. He hoped Morse wouldn't be too hungover tomorrow. At least not debilitated anyway. He wondered if he'd get some proper sleep tonight. He hadn't slept well since they'd found George's body. He doubted tonight would herald any changes in that state of affairs. He smoked the cigarette down to the end and flicked it away before getting into the car and driving off.


	7. Chapter 7

They had assembled in the lab and DeBryn stood behind the counter he had chosen to display their accumulated evidence on. Jakes had arrived first with Bright, followed a few minutes later by Strange and Morse. On seeing Morse, Max had nodded at the other man, and leaned forward slightly, a smile on his face and glinting in his eyes; where before the Doc's grinning had merely been out of appreciation, this expression was one of affection. Morse had clearly perceived the warmth underlying Max's version of "Welcome back" for he let out a quiet "Hmph", smiled faintly and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking down at the ground before briefly glancing up at Max again, as if checking that the man had meant it. Max and Morse, Jakes thought, not quite knowing how to process the evident affinity between the two. If Jakes had any affinity with anyone it was Bright, he was quite aware of that- always observing, always slightly apart, thorough strategists. 

"Well Doctor, the floor is yours." Bright said. 

Max adjusted his glasses before beginning. "Thanks to our entrepid officers, we have made great progress. Having Morse cleared of the charges of murder is always a help when attempting to shift the blame elsewhere." 

He indicated the hair samples laid out before them, along with the scarf, neatly bagged and labelled. "Our strongest piece of evidance is Morse's scarf. It was simply a process of finding things which shouldn't be there. This is Morse's hair, Deare's hair and our mystery dark hairs belong to a Monica Hicks, a special lady friend of Morse's."

Morse rolled his eyes. 

"Now Morse's hairs were on the scarf, as were Miss Hicks, but we also found Deare's hair on the scarf." 

"Which is enough to suggest he must have been present in some way, shape or form." Bright added. 

"If not actively involved. It is strong enough to recommend a further investigation- of Standish's home, as well as re-examining other evidence."

"We need to look at Deare's movements again for that night, see if we can put him at Standish's or blow holes in his alibi." Strange offered. 

"But they knew each other." Jakes said. "They could argue that the hair traces were simply there from another time, from a social event, that the hairs transferred to the scarf that way." 

"Would any fibres from the scarf have stuck to Deare?" Morse asked. 

"Deare was shot only shortly after Standish was murdered. The chances were high that some traces had stuck to Deare, so I examined his clothes with this in mind." DeBryn pushed forward another packet, containing Deare's evening suit and shirt. "There are traces of the scarf clinging to his cuffs." 

"And I assume vice versa, that there are jacket fibres on the scarf?" Jakes asked. 

Max pushed forward another slide. 

"Bloody hell, Deare wasn't as smart as he though he was." Strange commented. "This proves that he held the scarf in his hands and that it didn't just happened to rub against him." 

"Perhaps he thought the evidence would disappear and so could afford to be slightly more careless." Morse noted. 

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, hmmm?" Bright said. "Though it is compelling evidence to open up further investigation into Deare and Standish, it does not mean that anything is quite as clear cut as we would like it to be. We cannot bring charges against a dead man; nor can he be subject to a trial. We also have to consider that there may be attempts made to shift the blame onto someone else now that they've had their prime scape goat taken away from them. We have another woman, Angela, who killed Wintergreen, her father, Doctor Fairbridge, and shot Deare before turning the gun on herself. They'd try and say it was her who killed Standish as well." 

"But Standish wasn't-" Jakes burst out but silencing himself again. He looked to his left, away from the others, allowing only the briefest meeting of eyes with Morse. He couldn't get his mind to settle and come up with something to cover his outburst. 

"Nicholas Myers, Sir, explained that Landesman, Fairbridge, Deare and Wintergreen were the perpetrators of the acts in Blenheim Vale, and Standish was not actively one of them. Angela's murders were motivated by revenge. There was no motivation to murder Standish. Also, how could she have got my scarf?"

"We'll just do what we did before. We proved it wasn't you. We'll prove it wasn't Angela, just in case we need it." Jakes had recovered his voice. 

"I do believe that is the best way to proceed." Bright said. "We will launch a further investigation and we have to hope it can only lead to further things." 

"Such as?" Jakes asked. 

"A call for an investiagtion into corruption at the station, and into what happened at Blenheim Vale."

"We'll need public pressure for that." Morse added. 

"The newpapers will lap this up, no worries there." Strange said.

Jakes glanced at Morse, knowing by the look on his face that he had something in mind to do with the newspapers. 

"Doctor, thank you for your time. We will be asking you for some files later for the investigation." Bright said by way of calling the meeting to an end.

Max inclined his head before beginning to tidy up the counter. Morse moved towards Max and as Jakes left the room with the others he strained to hear what was passing between them but could not. 

\----------------------------------------

 

Jakes sat at his desk, typing up a report on a fatal car accident. The room was lit only by two pools of light, the lamp on his desk and the one on Morse's and the two overlapped. Morse had been sitting there as long as Jakes, reading every file on the combined Standish and Deare cases. He had been jotting down one or two word notes on what he was perusing, frowning darkly as if irritated with himself for need to take these moments to catch and articulate the thoughts racing through his head.  
Jakes typed a few more lines of the report before looking up again. He often watched others as they worked, believing that these habits said a great deal about a person. There was something almost enjoyable in watching Morse at work, something to be envied or desired in how he applied himself. He was utterly absorbed in his task, free from outside distractions, becoming a sponge it would seem, taking in not merely the facts of the case but any and all background information deemed necessary, filling in any blanks he had about a subject. He could easily picture Morse in the Bodlian library for hours on end, or in his rooms at college, sitting up until the small hours, poring over all manner of texts. 

He wouldn't have minded going further with school. Could've done it too, his marks were good enough. However he had never been able to justify it to himself, sitting around reading books and writing essays. He couldn't bring himself to do it for some abstract reason. Even when he had been doing English literature in school and he'd come across a writer or a poem he liked, he couldn't allow himself to read other works by that writer, or other poems outside of the course. It had nothing to do with getting on. Maybe one day, he thought, returning to the final paragraph of the report.  
He tore the sheet out of the machine and cast his eye over the lines, satisfied that there were no errors. 

"I'll be glad in some ways when this investigation is out our hands." Jakes said. 

"Hmmmm?" Morse continued to read. 

"It's a bit tricky attempting to do this work on top of our actual job." 

Morse nodded, still focused on the pages in front of him. He had one hand tangled in his hair, tugging absent-mindedly at it. Jakes shook his head silently. What was the point of talking to him about a heavy workload? It was the only setting the man operated under. He waited instead for Morse to emerge from his bubble of his own accord. 

"How do you think this is going to play out?" Morse asked. 

"You mean the investigation?" 

"It could go wrong, couldn't it?" Morse spoke it as more of a statement than a question. Jakes quirked an eyebrow as if to say, 'Well yes, of course it could, that's how the world is mate'.

"What if they just drop it? There's an enquiry and an investigation and then it's quietly forgotten about? They'll have discharged their duty and no-one can accuse them of a failure to carry out justice, case closed." 

Jakes tapped his pencil against the neatly typed papers. 

"It has to be ouside pressure. So that they cannot let it be hidden away again. All eyes have to be on them and they have to know that." 

"What are you planning, Morse?" 

"I'm going to contact a journalist I know and get her to focus on this investigation. She knew the other journalist who was murdered, so she'll be happy to write it." 

"Write what?" Jakes presed. 

"Well, first of all, we'll get her to focus on the turn the investigation has taken and how there's a need for there to be a full scale enquiry into Cowley police station and beyond." 

"Blenheim Vale." Jakes said quietly. 

"Absolutely." Morse was hardly registering what the other man was saying, he was carried along by what was in his own head. "They'll never let it go once that's brought up. Politicians will be forced to put pressure on to have a proper investigation, they can't not do it without being entirely discredited or appearing as if they are indeed covering up for something. Miss Frazil won't let this go either once she starts writing it. Some of the boys would be willing to go on record and talk about Blenheim, implicate Deare, Wintergreen. We have the chance to push this through." 

He rubbed the back of his neck before stretching and standing up. "Back in a jiffy." He said, heading for the men's. 

Peter sat staring unseeing at his typewriter. The room was too hot, too small, too dark. He grabbed for his cigarettes so that he had a reason for going outside. He got to his feet slowly, walking out of the room with a studied nonchalance. Halfway through the corridor he found himself breaking into a run, bursting through the station's entrance. He inelegantly sprawled into a sitting position on the steps, his cigarettes falling from his grip, landing between his feet. He watched the stars in the night sky, dragging in lungfuls of fresh air which didn't seem to be enough. 

It was as if his thoughts had been short circuited, sentences were cut off and left dangling like badly cut threads. He had no way of picking himself up from where he had left off. He allowed himself to think of nothing and bit by bit, his breathing slowed. He closed his eyes for a moment, welcoming the dark now that he knew he was surrounded by open space. 

"I was wondering where you'd got to." 

He snapped up at the sound of Morse's voice and turned to gaze up at the man before averting his eyes again. 

"Just couldn't work in that room any longer." He groped for his cigarettes, his fingers curling around the half-crushed packet. After sticking one in his mouth and lighting it he looked at Morse again. He realised Morse was trying not to shiver, standing out in the harsh January night in only his shirt sleeves and simultaneously he realised that he too had pelted out here without his coat. He inhaled on the cigarette, attempting to act as naturally as possible, that he had intentionally come outside in the freezing cold to smoke. So he continued to puff away, supressing his shivering and cursing everything he could think of. 

"Do you want a cup of tea?" Morse asked. 

Jakes nodded enthusiastically and Morse disappeared back inside. He took the opportunity to light another cigarette and attempted to unfold himself and unwind, even partially. He heard Morse returning and he appeared at his side, a mug of tea in each hand, now wearing his coat and also had Jakes' coat draped over his arm. Jakes took the mugs from him and placed them on the ground as Morse sat himself down. Morse offered him his coat which he shrugged into swiftly. He took the mug in his free hand and continued to smoke. 

"If there's an investigation," he began. "that leaves the station open to potential problems." 

"How so?" 

"Well, they're not just going to limit themselves to investigating the corruption, are they? They'll be looking into everything and anything that they can gain access to. Bright is really putting himself out on the line with this." 

"In what way?"

"He's leaving himself open to being investigated himself, essentially." 

"He's willing to risk that I suppose, for something this important." 

"Will the Journalist, Miss...?" 

"Frazil." 

"Miss Frazil, will she need me to talk to her?" 

Morse shook his head. "You don't have to if you don't want to." 

"But the others will." 

"They'll probably do it anonymously. Miss Frazil cannot be made to reveal her sources." 

"I can't. I can't, I'm sorry, I can't." And then even the night sky was too close. The mere thought of having to turn himself into a piece of evidence, a witness, a testimony, made his stomach roil perilously. 

"Peter." He had never addressed him by his first name before. "Don't say that, Peter. Say anything but not 'I can't'. Say you don't want to. Say you won't, say you refuse to. Forget about can't." 

Peter drank some of the tea before speaking again. "I don't want to talk to the paper." 

"Fine." 

"But I can't not talk to the paper if it's important for the investigation."

"Nicholas and Henry will talk to Miss Frazil, I'd say. And once even just two people come forward, named or unnamed, that will open it out. Others will come forward for unfortunately there must be so many others. It doesn't have to be you if you don't want to."

"It's selfish. Unprofessional." 

"Sometimes you have to be selfish." Morse must have heard the continued doubt in Peter's silence. "You don't always have to be the one to take the blows. You've already made a difference. Let the others carry through what you started." 

"I don't want to talk to them," Peter mumbled. "but what if my name turns up in the course of the new investigation? I can't- no, I bloody won't work here if everyone finds out that I was there!" 

"Don't think about that until, and if, it happens." 

Peter didn't know how to articulate to him that he still wouldn't even allow himself to reconstruct fully what had happened in Blenheim Vale. What clung to him was a series of remembered sensations, a tone of voice, flickering images. He had worked hard to keep it at this threshold level for years and years and even now he could just about hold it at bay. But if he read his name in the papers, if he saw it printed anywhere to do with Blenheim Vale, if he saw what the other boys had to say, he would be forced to accept what he had been avoiding since it had happened. He couldn't read of what the others had to say, and accept that their experiences had been the same as his, or even worse, or perhaps not so bad. But how could you even measure this? He did not want to find himself in a position where his mind would compulsively seek to balance out the written word with his memories. He needed it to remain unknowable and unknown for as long as he lived. 

He found Morse looking at him; not examining or questioning, simply looking at him. When he saw Peter returning this attention he shifted his gaze to the night sky. There was something softer about Morse this evening and he felt it even more starkly in contrast to his own sharp corners and spiky inability to simply sit and be. 

"Thursday's much better than I let on." Peter didn't wait for any reaction, he kept ploughing ahead. "We were worried that too many people would try to see him if they knew he was recovering, and potentially the wrong people, so Bright and I put it about that he was critical. Jail was the safest place for you, hospital for Thursday, until we could put together this investigation." 

Nothing was said for a few beats and then Morse made an exasperated noise. "You're not even going to apologise?" 

"No." Jake stated. "We did what was necessary." 

"I understand that, I do. But I don't like it." 

"Can't help you with that, I'm afraid." 

Morse sighed deeply. "Is it alright to visit him now though?" 

"I'd say check with Bright, but it should be." 

"Do you want to come with when I do?" 

Peter nodded. He didn't want to go though, he wanted only to see Thursday again when he was back at work. He had never been comfortable around sickness and he fought shy of it when he could. He wondered what Monica the nurse had to witness on a daily basis. He was able to look upon dead bodies, but being with someone who's body was failing them, who was ill and incapacitated was something he did not know how to handle and he would rather be absent than make some incredible faux pas. Anyway, what comfort could his presence provide? 

Morse was lost in thought, rolling the mug between his hands. Jail couldn't have done him any good. Too much time to think. Too much time to worry. 

"Next time bring the biscuits." 

"What biscuits?"

"Strange has a stash hidden away." 

"Next time I'll bring the whiskey." 

"You know what, I believe you really would." 

"At least we could put some in our tea or something." 

"Remember what Thursday said."

"I don't consider alcohol a servant or a master but an accompaniment." 

"Yeah, an accompaniment Morse, not a constant companion. There is a difference."

"Semantics, semantics." He paused. "Although, I suppose this entire case hinges on mere semantics."


	8. Chapter 8

Peter loosened his tie as soon as the bedsit door closed behind him. He and Morse had stayed working for a further hour after their impromptu tea break in the freezing cold. Tomorrow was a scheduled day off for both of them, however Morse had told him he was planning to meet with this Miss Frazil to discuss the Deare story and Peter had informed Morse that he was going with him. Not to contribute anything, mind, he would be in attendance only because it concerned the investigation he and the station were so deeply involved in. 

He hung up his shirt, smoothing it carefully and frowning over the state of the collar and cuffs, mentally making a note to see to that tomorrow morning. His landlady had a particular flair for dealing with such issues. He was aware that he had managed to charm her into being willing to take care of such mundane tasks for him. He had what a majority apparently considered as good looks. 

He did something which he rarely did- he stood in front of his mirror and considered his appearance. To be more precise- Peter Jakes spent a not insignificant amount of time checking and passing judgement on his appearance when getting ready for work or before going out on one of his infrequent dates; it was the reason why he had invested in a full length mirror, so as to be able to check how his suits fell and worked as an ensemble. However he did not use the mirror to examine his body, his undressed form. And yet at this late hour he felt something compelling him to undertake such a survey. He stood in front of the mirror, taking in his bony frame which seemed to be all legs, slightly bandy and covered in dark hair. He liked the lines and angles which he saw reflected but he took no delight in them. It was a body, this one happened to be his and he could dress it well. It was something which existed which he couldn't alter greatly, it was just there, an object, like the cock visible in the tangle of black hair between his legs or the pink scars criss-crossing his back. 

He pulled on an old vest and underwear before climbing into bed. He had no desire to be pretty, though he enjoyed pretty things. He could not judge if he had been a pretty child; even if he could measure that for certain, what was the point? Pinning down such an idea as fact would absolve no one, would bring about no answers. If it could not achieve either of those aims then Peter would not waste his time considering such things, no matter if his mind regularly tried to tempt his thoughts towards such alleys. 

Morse was a pretty thing; he possessed a gentle beauty which was only enhanced, irritatingly so, by the ridiculous sentences he gave voice to. There was something pleasing about the way his face was put together, whether it was the curve of his lips, the planes of his cheeks, the angle of his nose or how his freckles seemed to have been placed on his cheeks according to a design. 

The realization had only come late in life to Peter that he found both women and men attractive to look at. He had ignored his body and its potential desires until long after he had been able to get out of the institutions he had passed through, one after the other. Being moved so often meant he had little time to make close connections with his contemporaries and avoided bearing too close witness to their teenage turmoils. It had only been when he began to earn his own wage and would spend his spare cash on weekly visits to the cinema, only then did he recognize that he could experience a desire for others. This desire was satisfied by watching beautiful figures flickering across the big screen. He had also gained new found companionship from the other constables he worked with. The attraction he felt for both sexes did not worry him particularly. Firstly, no one knew but him. Secondly, he so rarely felt the need to physically consummate the desire he felt for it to have yet become an issue. 

It'd been quite a while since he'd last been with anyone. He wasn't experiencing a fierce rush to do anything about that and yet he still found himself experimentally running his palm over the front of his underwear. His body responded with interest and Peter let his mind move; he never knew if he was meant to think about something specific when taking care of himself this way. He thought of Joan. Joan was sexy, sparkly, she had a wicked smile and a light in her eyes which Peter had found instantly attractive.  
He let his legs fall open and found it more than pleasant trying to reacquaint himself with his body's physical aspect, long-neglected. He kept the blanket over himself. He didn't need or want to see what he was doing to himself. 

Another image came into his mind- of him approaching Morse, pressing his hips against his, waiting to see the look of utter stupefaction which would undoubtedly cover his face. It would be worth it to witness the astonishment and inability to form a response.  
He pushed his underwear down, freeing his cock and bringing his hand back up to cup and stroke his balls before taking hold of himself and moving his fingers over it, brushing his thumb lightly over the tip. His other hand was occupied in filling the role of the absent lover- he slid his fingers over his chest, touching his collarbone, moving across his nipples before returning inch by inch to his thighs. His strokes increased in speed and his other hand went under himself, his fingers playing with his cheeks. As he moved on the bed, he felt his hair being messed up and some strands fell across his forehead and stuck there. He came, shuddering, and silently, throwing his head back into his pillow, his legs jerking and seeking purchase on the sheets.  
After some moments he forced himself to rise groggily and find some tissues in his coat pocket to wipe himself off with before settling back into bed. As soon as he lay down, sleep stole over him and pulled him under. 

\--------

Jakes strode toward The Firtree, easily picking out Morse's figure standing in front of the pub, waiting for him. He was amazed the man had enough self-restraint to remain outside and not at the bar. He was aware of no strange or embarrassed feelings over what had passed through his mind last night. He knew there was nothing for Morse to read in his face and even if there was he wouldn't be capable of reading it. 

"Alright." He nodded at the constable. 

The pub was a good choice on Morse's part- it lay outside of the main town, past Magdalen College, the other side of the bridge. It was occupied by only a scattered few and they had no difficulty in commandeering a table at the back, apart from the others. 

"Cheers." Morse raised his pint to Jakes before burying his nose into the glass, his eyes closing for a moment, the enjoyment evident. 

Jakes perceived a figure coming towards them. 

"Morse this better be some story that has me up in some dreary little pub this early on the weekend." 

She sat down, placing her gin and tonic on the table. She crossed her legs and opened her bag, plucking out a packet of fags. She stuck one in her mouth and as if it were a reflex, Jakes dipped into his jacket pocket and held open his lighter for her. She bent over the flame- "Thanks awfully."- and leaned back in her chair and surveyed the two of them. Jakes instantly liked her, her effortless poise, the way she held herself. 

"Miss Frazil, Sergeant Jakes." Morse offered as an introduction before beginning. "It all goes back to the story Eric was working on." 

"And has something to do with the paper I sent you?" 

He nodded. "The police are covering up for systematic abuse, and murder, in a boy's institution." 

Morse laid out the story for her, starting with Eric's murder, through to their growing suspicions about Blenheim Vale, and ending with the investigation about to be launched into Cowley Police Station, as well as the evidence being stacked against Deare. Jakes admired how Miss Frazil was always able to make the connections in what Morse was saying, and almost prompting him into the next thread of the story. She made no notes. 

"So," She said when Morse had come to the end of his tale. "You would not be telling me this unless you wanted me to do something specific with it. What's the angle? What am I to be pursuing and highlighting?"

"We need you to stir up the public, put the pressure on local politicians and the station to really go through with the investigation."

"It's a topic most don't really discuss though. They'd rather ignore it. Too many may recognize their own guilt, for having turned a blind eye, for having been neglectful." 

Jakes stood up, asking if they wanted the same again. He didn't particularly want to leave Morse and the journalist alone together, fearing what he would miss them saying. However he needed a moment away from the table. It was surreal to hear Blenheim Vale being discussed as a linear narrative, which began somewhere and ended somewhere else and now they were planning to extract some moral from it. Blenheim Vale, as Peter had experienced it, had been one endless period of time, not marked off in any way, a cycle which came around over and over. It had been easier to imagine there were no days for otherwise you would have to count them and know how much of your life had been spent there, how often they were in the back seat of Wintergreen's car. Pretending it was the same experience which had happened once somehow made it tolerable. 

He took up his seat once again next to Morse. They were still discussing the focus the article should have. 

"I want to lead with the boys at Blenheim Vale. One, because that is what will outrage people. Two, because I want them to be recognized, I want their suffering acknowledged."

He had to hand it Morse; he was doing quite well at covering any potential reaction he was having at Miss Frazil's words, knowing he was sitting beside one of the boys from Blenheim. 

"Eric had approached some of the boys. Do you think they'll be willing to come and talk to me?" 

"Two of them, I think. Nicholas Myers and Henry Portmore. Hilary Portmore probably would talk to you but it would only be to discuss the effect of Blenheim on her brother. Benny Topling won't talk. I don't think he's able." 

She sighed. "Bastards." She fumbled with her cigarettes. "Bastards." She returned to the business at hand. "These interviews will form the backbone of the article. But I need more background information on Blenheim and the case." 

Morse nodded. 

"Are you going to write just the one article?" Jakes asked. 

Miss Frazil stood up, ready to leave. "Oh no, Sergeant. I fully intend on writing as many articles as necessary." 

"It could be dangerous. They've silenced others before you." 

She smiled at him, not revealing anything, a smile thrown out as a welcome to the world and its challenges. "As Morse will tell you, I've never been good at staying quiet and no one will ever threaten me into changing my ways. Stay in touch."

She turned on her heel and was gone, swiftly out the door. 

"She is something else." Jakes said to Morse. The other man's face softened, that look of something approaching affection but at the very least, definitely esteem, the same look which had passed between him and Max. For someone who seemed such a loner, he inspired and held strong friendships with others. 

Morse was watching him; he felt like he was being watched at least and he guessed at what it intimated. 

"Do not give me that." He said through his teeth, his lips scarcely moving. "I am not some fine piece of china, about to shatter if someone says the words Blenheim Vale." 

Morse's eyes went wide and his bottom lip slackened, his mouth remaining slightly parted. 

"I didn't mean-" He stopped. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to say things right sometimes. I'm good with words in an argument but otherwise I tend to trip myself up. I thought I should say something though."

Jakes nodded once and kept his chin tucked near to his chest. This was exactly why he hadn't wanted anyone to know about Blenheim Vale. 

"You want another drink?" 

"Only if you're paying Morse. You still owe me for the whiskey." 

\-----------------

Monday morning saw Jakes and Morse ensconced in Bright's office, informing him of Miss Frazil's planned line of attack. He was wearing that still expression which indicated a certain satisfaction with how the job had been seen to. 

"I think we should head back out to Blenheim Vale." Jakes added at the end of their report. He knew Morse well enough at this stage to realise he was doing a good job of retaining a neutral expression on his face. 

"Yes, I believe that would be advisable. There is still a quantity of material left there. There could be something there to implicate Deare. Oh, how are we with proving Angela McGarrett innocent of murdering Deare?" 

"Constable Strange is working on that Sir, along with Dr. DeBryn." Jakes said. 

"Good. Well continue on, and do get that paper before it disappears." 

\-----------

Jakes stood next to the car, Morse already a few steps ahead of him. He had returned to Belnheim Vale, he had looked upon the remains of Big Pete, but he had not yet been within the walls of this building again. Morse turned his head as he was walking, glancing at Jakes over his shoulder. He didn't stop and turned his face towards the crumbling house. Jakes fell into step at Morse's side, slightly behind him. 

"I don't know which I'd prefer- to see this place collapsing in on itself or being bulldozed." 

Morse made no response. Their footsteps echoed as they moved through the empty rooms. They set about their task, sifting through the pages and files simply abandoned. 

"Did they want to hide in plain sight or something?" Jakes gestured at the paper amassed around them. 

"Could be that. Or perhaps they knew they had protection, even if this came to light. Which is what happened exactly." 

"Or," Jakes added. "It could also be a case of knowing that no one cared a toss anyway, even if the details were lying within reach. If people don't want to see something, they won't see it." 

The air smelled lifeless, unoccupied for years, undisturbed. Jakes checked his breathing, experiencing no need to find the nearest exit. Today his rational mind and body were working in harmony.  
Yes, the memories of his time here were so close and he was achingly aware of that. And yet they were not forcing in on him as he had imagined they would. At this moment they were like a dog waiting on the other side of a closed door, ready to rush through but they were not scratching and whining to get in. He could accept that.

"The strange thing is, we did have some good times here. I wasn't here that long but you know, I had friends. We mucked about. Just those moments are all mixed up with Blenheim as a whole and it's hard to make sense of that. Or allow it, almost." He shook his head. "Well, that came out as a load of bollocks." 

Morse snorted. "It wasn't the most elegantly constructed of sentences but I do think I know what you mean." 

"Yeah?" 

"I've a sister, Joycie. Half-sister. Anyway, things at home weren't great. My step-mother didn't like me. I'd like to spend more time with Joycie but to do that I'd have to go home and see Gwen too. They unfortunately come together." Morse bent his head over the papers once more and the setting sun came in through the window, making the red in his hair brighter. 

Jakes found himself picturing what Morse's little sister looked like and how he was with her. He had never really heard him talking about his own family and wasn't sure how to take the confidence he had just been given. 

He began gathering files deemed useful and as he straightened up he saw Morse hurriedly stuffing a sheet into his pocket. He got behind the wheel of the car, wondering for a moment what it was. Some lead Morse wanted to follow up himself, to do with Blenheim, something he didn't want to involve Jakes in for fear- for fear of what exactly? He didn't want to know. He didn't need to know. Today had been fine but the memory of the morning after drinking himself into a hole was still a fresh warning as to what he was capable of. They drove in a companionable silence. Jakes reached Morse's building and pulled up and as he got out, he asked suddenly- 

"Do you want to stop off at the pub? Round the day off?" 

Morse shook his head. "Sorry, but can we do it another day?"

"That must be a first." 

Morse grinned for a moment. "What me turning down the drink or you asking?" 

"I'll hold you to it, alright Morse?"

"You might get lucky. I might even pay for the round."


	9. Chapter 9

Jakes sat in the hospital waiting room, one long leg across his other knee, foot jigging. The seats were so bloody uncomfortable. He shifted several times before allowing himself to uncharacteristically slouch down. Hospitals were a place he liked to spend as little time as possible in. Hanging around, in any way, shape or form, drove him crackers but having to sit around a hospital was the worst. He spent his time looking at the floor, not wanting to see the damaged and weak bodies around him. Jakes was never ill. He never had flu, or at least never displayed any outward signs of suffering from it. The mere thought of having to submit to the touch of nurses and doctors was disgusting. To have someone wash you, clean your infected skin, to dispose of a bed pan just used. Turned his guts. 

Still. He'd got better at dealing with hospitals. Had to. Couldn't be much of a copper if he didn't learn how to. He thought of it as an extension of the police station- there was Cowley, there was the lab, and there was the hospital. Places he worked in. Admittedly, the first few times he had had to be in a hospital in relation to his job, whether in the aftermath of an attack or a violent death, he'd returned to his bedsit and furiously scrubbed himself, needing to rid himself of the smell. 

He fingered his lighter, flicking it open and closed. Morse had been in with Thursday for a while now. Morse had stopped outside of the room, turning around to see Jakes settling into his seat. He had made a few half-gestures at the constable before saying- "You probably want to see him first, just yourself." 

Morse has ducked his head, a grateful smile visible, and nodded once before pushing the door open. 

Jakes was fully aware that Thursday and Morse had a relationship unlike the one he had with any of his superior officers. He had learned to accept it and not to question it. Thursday was a fair man and somehow the three of them had found a routine and pattern that worked. In spite of sharing his lunch more often with Morse than with him, professionally Thursday treated him extremely well and that was all Jakes could expect, though some days he might harbour darker thoughts on that matter. 

"Jakes." He was pulled out of his reverie. Morse stood above him; his voice was steady though his eyes were over-bright. "Thursday would like if you went in to see him." 

Jakes wanted to ask Morse if he was alright. The question must have shown in his face or perhaps the younger man just needed so desperately to say something to anyone. 

"My father- I was beside him when he died. And there was nothing I- instead now..." Morse threw his head back and shut his eyes, clearly trying to regain his composure. Jakes had seen him furious before, flying into rants, he had seen Morse drunk but he had never seen him so distressed. It was as if the slightly detached and quietly melancholic cover had cracked and exposed something raw underneath. Yet how could he help Morse, he who could so little help himself? 

He went to step closer to Morse and suddenly he was gone, already out of the main hospital doors before he could react. He touched his hair briefly, telling himself he would find Morse in whatever pub he assumed he was off to seek shelter in. He hoped he wouldn't do too much damage to himself while he was with Thursday. 

He slipped into the room, closing the door gently behind him. 

"Jakes." Thursday said mildly in his usual tone of voice, yet the sergeant sensed a touch more warmth to it. 

"Sir." 

He hadn't wanted to see Thursday like this- his skin grey, exhaustion written into his features, his state of undress, forearms visible, slack now where before they had been strong, ineffectual after a long period of bed rest. 

"I know Sergeant, not much to look at just now, but you'll see. Be back at the station in no time." 

Jakes wanted to say he had no doubt he would be. He settled instead for folding himself into the chair beside his bed. 

"I hear you've been doing some Trojan work." 

"You mean on the case? Has Bright been in contact with you?"

"No, not a word. He has been in touch with Win though, which I appreciate. Oh, also Jakes, if you ever have the time yourself, could you...?" 

"Check in on them? Of course. I can offer Mrs. Thursday a lift in the car if she needs it." 

"Much appreciated. But, as a matter of fact, it was Morse who told me just now about what you've got done so far." 

Jakes started muttering something. Thursday's deep voice cut him off. "I'll give praise when I see it's due. Glad to know the station's in good hands. Chard mightn't be the sharpest, nor the most honest copper, but he was right about you. You're a good Sergeant. Seems like you moved heaven and earth to get Morse out of jail." 

Jakes put his hand on his smokes, wishing he could light up. 

"I bet he appreciated it hugely." 

He had to snort at that and he saw a spark in his boss's eyes. 

"Anyway, enough of that." Thursday attempted to sit up straighter against the pillows. "I want to hear your take on what's going on and where we stand." 

So Jakes began to sketch out the events of the past few weeks, focusing purely on Cowley station and Deare. He saw how Thursday greedily took in each word and he could guess at how much he wanted to be able to get out of his bed and take part in the action. After a time though, the energy faded again; he was nowhere near fit again and they both knew it. 

"You best be on your way, Jakes." 

"Sir." he replied, standing up. 

Thursday not only looked old, his expression betrayed that he felt old too. He wished he wasn't able to read that sentiment in the Inspector's face. It was apparent to him then that Inspector Thursday would not be able to assist them in the case. His body was healing more slowly than anyone would admit out loud. Jakes was certain it was this realisation that had set Morse off kilter.

\-----------------------

"Oh thank God you're here." 

"Miss Frazil." Jakes responded, entering the room. He had called Cowley just before leaving the hospital to check in. 

"Bright wants you here as soon as you can." Strange reported to him. "The journalist, Miss Frazil, is here and she wants to discuss something with you to do with the article." 

Arriving at the station, he'd expected to find Morse typing something haphazardly but there was no trace of him. He sought now to focus on the task at hand. 

"Any chance I can borrow a cigarette off you?" 

He extended the packet to her. 

"Oh, for this relief much thanks Sergeant." 

"It's a plight I recognise. Couldn't leave you gasping."

"I'll repay the favour one day, I'm sure."

It was not that Jakes found her attractive. He simply liked how she presented herself to the world at large; professional yet very individual, smartly put together yet mysterious. There was a quirky expression to her face- sharp eyes and a sarcastic mouth,. 

She tapped the pile of papers neatly arranged on the table. 

"You're already working on the article, I see." 

"I think I found my angle." Her mouth turned down as she said this. 

Jakes lit up another cigarette. "You don't look entirely happy about it though." 

"There are many aspects of my work I am not entirely happy about but I have to live with them otherwise I would not be as good at my job as others."

He nodded, understanding all too well what she meant. She held the fag between her teeth and handed him a slim file. 

"I'm leading with this boy at Blenheim Vale. The cover sheet is missing, the sheet which would have his name on it. In a way, it makes it perfect to use. A forgotten boy, whose name we don't know. Readers will picture their children in his place. The mystery and assumed tragic end will pull people in, really put them against Deare and his cronies."

"A tad cynical, don't you think?" 

She shrugged lightly, unaffected. "Sometimes being that little bit cynical is the most effective way of finding the story that impacts people." 

He opened the file and began to read through it. Half-way down the page his eyes stopped and he could only sit and stare, numb, knowing only to remain still and quiet, to display no outward change. Miss Frazil continued to talk and he nodded in the right places, dimly taking in the meaning of the words she spoke.  
He recognised the dates he had arrived and left. He recognised the physical description of himself as a child. He recognised it yet he could not understand it as something to do with him. An animal instinct had been awakened in him, to flee, or to kill, to lay the enemy powerless.  
It was his file. Little Pete's file. The name, where-Morse. He had seen him hastily stuffing a sheet into his pocket. Morse knew. He had read this. He had read this and not told him. Let the journalist grub all over it. He continued to sit, statue like, whilst inwardly he indulged in an orgy of violence, turning the table over, tearing the pages into nothing, going and finding Morse and breaking his nose for him again, throwing him to the floor. He could never do that, inhibited by knowing it to be wrong and also by knowing he would never be in a position to justify or get away with such acts. Yet the desire raged through him, something attracted him to at least the fantasy of it. He had turned to such thoughts regularly while he was a child, after coming to Blenheim. He would lie in bed, dreaming up punishments to dole out to those who hurt and humiliated him. 

He swallowed thickly and set aside these thoughts and took up reading the sheets once more, unable to stop himself and that which had been a vague grey became blinding light as he instantly decoded the half-truths on the page into what he had experienced. Problem child. Easily led by others. Accident prone. Ended up in many fights with the other boys. Explained all the visits to Dr. Fairbridge, for bruises and cuts and other more serious injuries. Incidents of bed-wetting. Repeated attempts at running away. Strain on resources. Sent back to relatives when Blenheim Vale judged they could no longer accommodate this child.  
Jakes pushed the pages back towards Miss Frazil and shook another cigarette out of the packet and offered her one. 

"Oh, go on. I need another." 

They sat and smoked for a few moments. "Is there any more paper, anything else out at Blenheim Vale?" 

"Not that we have found." 

"That poor boy." She murmured. 

"He wasn't the only one." 

"You're right. I have to remember that. I can't help think about the what ifs. What happened to him?" 

Jakes shook his head. 

"It's pointless, I know." She exhaled a stream of smoke. "I have to keep thinking of it as another story." 

"A big story." 

"A big story indeed, Sergeant. Which is precisely what disturbs me about it. Childhood is not meant to be a newsworthy item, meriting extensive investigation." 

"It does when it goes wrong. Miss Frazil, don't forget the other boy we have. We know what happened to him at least and we may even be able to prove it." 

Jakes found his thoughts these days straying far too often to Big Pete' remains being held in the lab, waiting for this mess to be adequately resolved, waiting to be buried. Jakes hoped that everything could be buried with him.

\------------------------

He rapped on Morse's door. Nothing. He banged on it again repeatedly, his knuckles beginning to protest, as did the occupant of the bedsit. Morse opened the door, looking for all the world as if he had just emerged from him bed. His hair was a riot, his shirt creased and untucked, his eyes had a bleary unfocused glaze. Right so. Clearly a few drinks in him already.  
Jakes slammed the door behind him and he continued to face Morse. 

"Christ, what's going on? Look, I'm sorry I went off earlier but I didn't realise it would be this bad." 

"You. You-" Peter struggled for the words, choking on the anger which had grown and grown in him. "You took the sheet with my name on it." He hissed. 

That dumbfounded look covered Morse's face, the one he got when something came about that he had not foreseen. 

"How did you-" 

"Frazil is using the rest of the file as the fucking centre piece for her article." 

Morse's eyes went everywhere but Peter's face and he raised his hand to the back of his neck, compulsively tugging at the hair there. "No-one will know it's you." 

"I know it's me. Do you get that? YOU know it's me. You read it, you read it sitting beside me and you hid it from me. Why didn't you give it to me?"

"I thought I was-" 

"Helping?" His voice was becoming increasingly higher pitched, a dog backed into a corner and snarling. "I've spent so long escaping that place and now it's there for everyone, I have to see it every day and-" 

He turned his back to Morse and stood at the window, head bowed, blowing hard. What was there to say? None of this made any difference. No. No, no, he was not going to allow this to happen again in front of Morse. Tears filled his eyes and he fought them back down again. Fingers touched his forearm and he instantly yanked himself away. 

"Get the fuck off of me." He bit out. He refused to face Morse just yet. He did not know how long he remained standing at the window for. At some point he heard Morse moving around the bed sit, then the sound of a bottle being uncapped, one, two measures being poured out. 

"In 'Far From the Madding Crowd', there's this character, Bathsheba Everdene; proud, beautiful, independent. She inherits her uncle's house and wealth. All those who work on the estate don't take it seriously, that she will now be their mistress. How could she be able to oversee the running of an estate and the livestock as well? And she comes in to address them. She's flawlessly put together and demonstrates in her words just how capable she is. She sweeps out of the room after this and says 'I shall be up before dawn and surprise you all.'" 

Peter cleared his throat and found his eyes were no longer threatening to betray him. "I like that. 'I shall be up before dawn and surprise you all.'" He repeated. Morse's eyes sought his as he approached the couch. There was genuine concern in them, contrition, a certain helpless resignation. He took up the glass. 

"I didn't know she'd pick out that one file..."

"You're alright Morse." 

He couldn't explain how he'd needed someone to yell at, for fear of coming to blows with someone else, or obliterating himself with hard spirits. He didn't much fancy that again and he knew he couldn't afford to professionally either. Didn't leave him many options. Not that he'd had a lot of options to start with. Perhaps Morse's world was this limited too. 

"It's nothing. It's nothing." He said more to himself than the man beside him. "It's not me anyway, is it?" 

Morse's brow creased. "How so?" 

"It's not me. That isn't me, you know?" 

"It's not you, as in it's not you now and in that it's not all of you, but it was you once-" 

"No." Peter shook his head, dismissing the idea instantly. Tommy Cork's face appeared in his mind. That child, he'd hated him. Hadn't hated him, it was having to see him which raised his hackles. He had been torn between the urge to warn him that not all policemen were his friends and to get him to show some bloody manners. He'd earned that much right in his life, to have others acknowledge his rank and status and to act appropriately. 

"Poor Little Pete." Morse said. "No-one wants him, not even you." 

"What would you know?" 

"I know what it's like to be an unwanted presence. To be an unwanted child, I should say. To some people down the station I'm sure I'm still an unwanted presence." 

This was to do with earlier, Jakes could sense it, it had some connection with what his visit to Thursday had brought up, whatever that might be. He was aware of this coming to the surface in More and yet he didn't want to ask him about it, or even let him talk. 

Morse was gazing downwards, not looking at anything in particular. 

Just leave it, Peter thought, just leave it Morse, there is no puzzle to be solved here, you can't make this go forward, just let it go. He had long ago made the decision to leave Little Pete behind and mostly he had been successful in this. He could only move ahead as Peter Jakes, and so that was what he had done as soon as he had been able to escape from those institutions. Morse liked to look back, to get in his memories and lie down. He would never be able to understand why someone would willingly do this to themselves, repeatedly. This would be the character trait in Morse he wouldn't be able to stick; never mind his arrogance, his inability to speak without quotes, his ridiculous theories, his chronic failure in remembering to bring his wallet with him. The desire to have his head forever turned half back to the past was something he could not comprehend. 

Should they talk? What could they talk about? Had he and Morse ever even had a conversation that was not related to work in some way? Morse couldn't do small talk, he knew that, and he wasn't in the mood for supplying the usual patter he could be relied upon.  
So they sat in silence, the night drawing in around them, a silence that wasn't awkward and stiff yet it wasn't entirely companionable either. They drank steadily and not to excess (on Jakes' part.) The whiskey left his head muzzy and kept the events of the day at arm's length. Morse lay prone on the couch, his legs untidily stretched out in front of him, his head turned to the side and tucked into his shoulder. He wasn't asleep or even on the verge of it, his eyes were open and flickering. Even at this hour his brain was still dancing from thought to thought, from idea to memory to God knows what.  
Yet, for all his brilliance, Peter did not envy him. If Morse had been in Blenheim Vale, his mind would've dealt with it in a different manner to Peter's. That hyper mind, circling ever in on itself, over events and memories long past, it would've left him unable to shake them off. His melancholy leanings would not have helped him to survive at all. 

He took another mouthful of the drink. And yet. And yet- Morse was still here. He had never brought up Blenheim Vale or used it against him, had never revealed the secret Peter carried, had taken it on as his secret too. Though he knew to keep Peter's history with Blenheim quiet, he was also the only person he had met who was not ashamed to name what had happened there for what it was. Where others would have held back and created round about sentences, Morse had called it what it was and was not afraid to apply the words to those he believed responsible. Peter hadn't had anyone who dared to say such things aloud. Even he and the other boys hadn't talked to each other about what went on. And even after reading that file, Morse still treated him the same. 

"What did you do with the sheet? With my name on it?" 

"Burned it." Morse replied. He reached for the bottle. "Another?"

Peter held out his glass to be filled. 

"You never changed the way you treat me." Jakes said. 

"Why would I?" Morse sounded genuinely baffled.

Because it's marked me. Because it formed me and to have to admit you are the person you are due to being subject to those who abuse their power is to admit to being a victim. 

"Nothing that happened there was your fault." It wasn't an appeal, it was to act as a reminder, an affirmation, something not to be disputed. 

"Ach, everything's not as black and white as you make it out." 

Morse's head jerked up and he fixed Peter with his large eyes. "It is in this case."

Maybe it was. Peter didn't say that. Instead he sank into the couch, mirroring Morse's position. 

"'I shall be up before dawn and surprise you all.'" He enunciated, almost as if reciting a prayer. Morse responded by smiling at him, faint lines touching the corners of his eyes, his lips parted. 

"I'd never doubt that, Peter."


	10. Chapter 10

He found himself on the floor with Morse kneeling beside him. How this had happened, he had no idea. They'd finished their drinks and Morse had offered to put Jakes up for the night and he'd gratefully accepted the invite to curl up on the couch. It wasn't cosy, not by a long shot and there was much twisting and kicking as he sought a position which would be acceptable for his legs, until he eventually gave up and put his head down to sleep. 

Most nights he could put up with being the solitary occupant of his bedsit. He had still yet to grow used to not sharing a room with multiple other lads. He was a sound sleeper, though he would wake at the lightest touch and would be ready to go. He was as much a morning as an evening person, liking the two times of day particularly, equally at home in the stillness of first light as he felt under the cover of dark. When things got too quiet then he'd have trouble dropping off. On such nights he didn't even attempt to coax his body and mind into resting, he got up immediately and sat smoking, his ear cocked to the noise of the town otuside. 

"Did I fall off the couch?" He asked. 

"You were, ah, moving around a lot and I think you rolled a bit too far."

"I woke you up?"

"Well, you were also making a lot of noise before that." 

Peter sat up. "Ach, I never remember what I dream about. Sorry for waking you though." 

After sitting up, he realised Morse had his hand resting on his knee. Not moving or applying any pressure, simply touching him. 

"Here." Morse got to his feet, breaking the contact. He held out his hand and Peter took it and allowed himself to be pulled into a standing position. "Take the bed." 

"I'm not going to do that. This is your place. Anyway, I'll probably roll out of the bed too." Peter had already resigned himself to spending the rest of the night in a smoking vigil. What time was it anyway? 

"You won't roll out if I get in behind you."

Jakes snorted. Morse stood waiting. "Jakes, I'm serious. I'm tired and I won't get any sleep if you keep crashing onto the floor."

"Because me rolling on top of you and smacking you in the head won't disturb you at all." 

"I can guarantee you I won't notice that. But the sound of a body hitting the floor has the tendency to wake me up."

"Alright man, just leave it, whatever you say."

He lowered himself onto the narrow mattress, followed by Morse. After some inelegant rearranging they found space enough for each other. Morse fell aseep quickly and Jakes lay awake, listening to his regular breathing. It had been a long time since Peter had shared a bed with someone. He'd forgotten what it was like. When the occasion had arisen that he'd had someone to spend the evening with, it did not necessarily mean they shared a bed. After having sex, Peter would leave or indeed, sometimes it was in the back seat of a car where the hurried act took place. 

He remembered one night, soon after he had left those places for once and for all, having reached the legal age, his sister Sinead had tracked him down. Barely twenty herself, just married, she offered Peter somewhere to stay until he got himself on his feet. They hadn't seen each other in so long, hardly knew one another really; still, they had each other for the time being at least. That first night, when she'd got up to check on the baby, instead of going back to her own bed, she came into Peter and they'd spent the night whispering, blanket pulled around them, sharing their memories of their family before their father had died. She asked him nothing about where he had been these past years. That was probably the last time he had woken up with someone beside him. 

He dozed lightly, unable to rest properly, moving between wakefulness and slumber, apprehensive about having another bad dream which would make him roll on top of Morse. He instead watched the weak early morning light touch the edges of the curtains and gradually strengthen, changing the murkiness of the room into discernible shapes. 

Peter lay on his side, towards Morse, who was also facing him, and the other man was lit from behind, his bare freckled shoulders blanched white, his hair auburn and his face looking younger, but pinched too. Peter could not explain it, there was something pleasing about Morse's face and figure. He possessed a casual elegance, which he was oblivious to himself, in contrast to Peter's studied attitude. 

He knew Morse was exhausted, bloody hell, they all were at the moment with the way things were at Cowley- Thursday absent, an investigation just about to be launched and their continued work on that case plus the daily grind on top of it all. He was tired, that tiredness Jakes had too often found himself experiencing, a constant low current pulling under everything he did.  
He did wonder about that other life Morse disappeared into when he left the station. Peter guarded his privacy fiercely and somehow Morse, though he wasn't actively trying to, retained an air of mystery about what he did outside of work. Most likely it wasn't very exciting, yet Peter found himself imagining how he spent his Sunday evenings or his free mornings. 

Peter lay there, his eyes on Morse's face, toying with an idea. He most likely felt some residual guilt over the name sheet incident. Peter didn't necessarily hope he felt bad about it, but then again maybe he did. He was tired, clearly, after all this relentless work on the case against Deare. And something had happened between him and that nurse, Monica, and had ended. He had also offered to share his bed with Jakes, and touched his knee, almost without realising, it would seem. Perhaps he would allow Peter to- 

He leaned in closer to the still sleeping Morse, drinking in these moments, taking in the line of his nose and brow, the curve of his skinny hips, how soft his skin appeared; Peter surrounded himself with it almost. He didn't want to have it just around him anymore, he wanted to roll in it, to be in it, to have it on him.  
He reached across the final gap between them and broke it, touching his slightly parted lips to Morse's. He applied a gentle pressure, revelling in how Morse's mouth moved under his. He sighed against Peter's lips and then twitched, inhaling and holding his breath. Awake now and this was the moment everything hung on. Jakes didn't pull back, instead held himself utterly still. In this silent and watery grey room the moment stretched on before Morse gasped and kissed Peter, falling on his mouth, stopping again, looking at him with wide open eyes, questioning, forever questioning, even now. The only answer to this was to take Morse's bottom lip between his teeth and nip it, just enough, before touching his chin, trailing his fingers over his jaw and snaking his tongue in to meet Morse's. He moved, getting Morse onto his back and lay straight against him, his legs falling between the other man's, his hands on either side of his head, his fingers lost in the reddish locks.

He wanted to feel Morse under him, to cover his body. From the way he was kicking his feet against the sheets, tangling them up together even further, he was more than willing to have Peter's full weight on him. Bony hips hit against each other, warm skin became heated and damp under the confines of their clothes and blankets. Peter sat back, now straddling Morse, resting comfortably just below his crotch, where his underwear had tented quite interestingly. Before focusing on this, Peter tore the blankets off of them, wanting to have an unimpeded view of the body between his thighs. Morse's face was flushed pink, his eyes blown even wider than usual, his thin chest visibly rising falling as he watched Peter. Neither of them spoke. He put his hands on Morse's hips and eased off his underwear. Peter raised himself into a standing position, quickly removed his trousers and shirt, carefully aiming them at the couch, out of harm's way. He approached the bed again, his eyes locked on Morse stretched out naked, clearly not trusting himself to move, returning Peter's gaze and a pink tongue licking his lips, slowly. 

Peter lowered himself over his body, taking possession of his mouth once more, thrilling at having Morse so uncertain yet open beneath him. He trailed a line down his neck, lapping at the prominent collarbone, nosing down to his concave belly but stopping just before reaching his cock, instead swirling his tongue roughly over the soft skin of his inner thighs, causing Morse to part his legs. He flicked a glance over Morse and felt the impact of his enthralled, near trembling form, his eyes half closed, brow still furrowed, appearing as if he were struggling internally with something, something holding him back. 

Peter dipped his head and ran his closed lips over Morse's length, eliciting a breathy cry from the man, which he tried to choke off but failed to. Peter reached his tip and touched his tongue to it, steadying the other man, sweeping one hand up to his hip, the other playing with his balls, fingers and thumb splaying, stroking along the curve of his cheeks. He was keenly conscious of his own erection yet he wanted only to do this, to take Morse into his mouth and listen to the hitching of his breath and he began a slow rhythm, teasing him. Morse's hands remained at his sides, sometimes clenching at the sheets, the air. Jakes didn't need for him to be putting his hands to any other use. He increased the pressure and the pace and the instant result was a shudder from Morse. 

He sensed him getting close to coming, and removed his mouth, switching to gripping him with his hand and working him this way instead. Part of him wanted to experience such a moment of intimacy but he couldn't make himself suffer that act again, to make himself choke down on it. Instead Morse came over his hand, some of it splattering hotly on his chest and the sight of Morse undone went straight to his groin. He brusquely wiped his hand and chest off on a fistful of sheet before lying down beside Morse, who still had his eyes closed, his shoulders rising and falling sharply. His lids fluttered open and Peter bucked his hips when he felt Morse's fingers wrapping around his cock and beginning to stroke. Peter shook his head, pressing into the pillow, raising his hand to stop him and instead found himself giving in to his touch. 

He had clearly done this before, which Peter hadn't expected. He kissed him then, and each time Peter tried to break it, the other man would swiftly return to his mouth. It wasn't long before Peter's orgasm broke over him and he was grasping at Morse's shoulders, holding onto him, hiding his face in the hollow of his neck. They lay there, Peter feeling his heartbeat returning to its regular pace, his breathing calming. He stayed in the darkness, lying against Morse and tried not to think about anything beyond now, beyond the haven of this bed. 

They dozed lightly, and eventually Morse disentangled himself from Peter, who promptly slumped onto the bed, face down, muttering and protesting. He heard a snort from Morse. 

"I'll be back in a few minutes." He dressed quickly, presumably on the way to the bathroom. Peter began to drift off again and was roused by the narrow bed dipping, signalling Morse's return. Knuckles ran down his back; Jakes stiffened immediately and fought off the reflex reaction to shove him away. 

"Don't do that. Please." He tried to soften the bluntness of his words. Morse stopped, abruptly and Jakes could imagine how he had snatched his hand away and was now about to hedgehog up inside himself in that reactionary way only he could. Jakes wondered why he was even attempting to explain this, or to take Morse into consideration. Usually he would have just left the bed at this point with little further elaboration. 

"Morse. I liked-look, I just don't like people touching my back. It's nothing personal." 

There was continued silence. 

"It's the scars. I don't like people touching them or looking at them. It's just how I am." 

He knew it was ridiculous and he always experienced such exasperation at himself. It wasn't as if the scars hurt to touch, he simply didn't want to be reminded of their existence, of those irregular red lines seared onto his skin like an obscene tattoo. And there was nothing he could do to change them. Sometimes if someone touched his back without warning he braced himself, clenching his fists, preparing for the blows to follow. In those moments, Little Pete took over his mind and that was another reason for hating those marks, for despising them. They were proof, unforgettable, undeniable. 

Morse reached over a hand and curled it across Jakes' hips, his thumb stroking back and forth over his lower belly. He could accept this. He did not know what Morse meant by it exactly but it wasn't pity and he could accept it. 

"Peter." 

He still wasn't used to hearing Morse call him by his first name. He didn't have a clue as to what he should call Morse, except for, well, Morse. 

"Peter." His voice was even, soft but clear. "What scars?" 

"You what?" What was this? Was he mocking him?

"I can't see any scars." 

"They're there." Peter ground out harshly. "A fucking caning isn't a gentle tickling sensation, right?" 

"I know. I know that." 

"Here." Peter grasped his hand, his grip over-strong but he didn't care. He placed Morse's hand across the small of his back where the lines were. 

He was ten years old, standing in front of the Doc after Deare and Wintergreen had done with him. He couldn't stop crying, it didn't matter how much the Doc stiffly told him to stop it. His trousers were sticking to him, he was wet and cold and his back felt on fire and he had to try stay still while his shirt was removed. It came off in strips, destroyed and bloodied and had to be peeled off of the broken skin. 

He felt Morse shifting behind him, but holding his hand where Jakes had placed it. His breath dampened his skin and he knew then that Morse had moved so as to look at his back. 

He'd had to sleep on his front for weeks after. He couldn't move too freely either, for fear of reopening the wounds. He'd stared at mirrors, holding another mirror in front of him, angling them so he could check each day how the lines continued to bleed, and turned from being red raw meat to yellowed faded brusies, how the skin puckered up as it tried to heal. He waited for the day when they would disappear but it never came and so he stopped checking them and learned to ignore them. 

"Peter." 

That voice, a voice which had not been part of Blenheim Vale, this dragged him back into the present moment. 

"I practically have my nose against your back and all I can see here," He touched a spot. "And here, and here," He moved his fingers. "Are some thin white lines. I wouldn't have seen them except you pointed them out to me. I also wouldn't have seen them if I wasn't this close."

Morse lay down again and resumed the position he had held before, his hand caressing Peter's hips and tracing over his tummy. 

"Really?" He asked. 

Morse nodded against his shoulder. "Really." 

"Then why do I have to see them? I'm not crazy or anything." His stomach rolled, protesting the idea beginning to take root in his mind, overwhelming him. 

"I don't know." 

Jakes wriggled out of the hold and sat up on the edge of the bed. He stood and went to find his coat, fishing the cigarettes and lighter out of them. He pulled on his underwear and lit up, slowly returning to sit on the bed. Morse was at a right angle to him, sitting up, his head against the wall, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them. 

What was there to say? Even if he ever did attempt to put into words what had happened at Blenheim Vale, to express somehow what it had been like, it wouldn't make any sense. How could he, at fifteen year's remove, articulate a child's experience in the voice of an adult? This was why he never spoke about it. That night, when he had told Morse, he'd done it nearly in spite of himself. He needed to tell Morse about the dry cleaning tag, to make sure he had all the information possible in the case. Even doing that much had scrambled his mind's usual signals, his body too, and he'd found himself weaving in and out of the strangest state, between his work as a Sergeant and his younger self's logic and fear.  
He felt most days that he didn't particularly like Little Pete. What was the point of opening his gob and letting this stream of words come out? What would it do? It wouldn't help explain anything, wouldn't remove the scars or confirm their existence, he would still waver between the two. 

He smoked, his elbows resting on his knees. He had never been able to find a thread running through his life, couldn't somehow connect the separate episodes, experiencing everything as a continuous now, only considering the immediate future. Having the past bleed into now and his private life be touched by his professional world was something he worked actively to avoid. 

And yet, here he was, still sitting across from Morse, traces of both their come on each other. He looked at him, running his hand over his hair, trying to untangle the sweat clumped strands. He smiled faintly at Jakes, appearing a touch uncertain, visibly swallowing. Jakes leaned over, the remains of the cigarette glowing down to nothing between his fingers, and he kissed the corner of Morse's mouth. 

"Alright there?" 

Morse nodded, his eyes meeting Jakes' in a most coquettish manner and bloody hell, it was as if what had come before just disappeared and Jakes wanted to roll right back into bed with him. 

Instead he rose to his feet and dropped the finished cigarette into an empty glass before dressing himself properly. He buttoned up his shirt fully and paused at the door. Morse had come over to him, still clad in only his underwear. Jakes turned his head to him, taking a moment to wonder, to assess. Was Morse expecting something? Apparently not. He only wanted to remind him about having to go report to Bright later in the day. 

As Jakes left, he realised he wouldn't have to struggle to keep Morse at arm's length, even after what had transpired, and even if they decided to repeat it. The trait which most annoyed him made it possible. Morse was forever stuck in his own past, his own memories and this meant that he would never overcrowd him. How was it that someone could want too little and too much all at once? And a moment later, Jakes recognised that he wasn't sure who that sentence applied to.


	11. Chapter 11

Jakes rang the bell and waited; when the door swung back it did not reveal Mrs. Thursday but Joan, her bright eyes fixed on him, a smirk barely concealed on her lips. This was precisely what he liked about her, what had drawn him to her initially. He nodded briskly at her, waiting to be allowed inside as she lounged against the door, arm raised above her head, fingers rested on the jamb. They hadn't seen each other since that half-date which had ended with him scarpering. She was clearly enjoying this moment, gauging her effect on him. 

"Well." was all she said, leaving it open for him to say something, wanting to see how he would respond, what tack he would take or topic he would land on. 

"It's been a while." He said mildly. 

Did she seem nearly glad to see him? She stepped aside and jerked her head, to direct him on in. He glanced at her once again and this time caught the dark circles under her eyes which she had sought to cover up with carefully applied make-up, and how her cheeks had achieved a new sharpness; now, though in many ways she retained a girlish aspect, this could no longer be claimed about her appearance. She had changed since he had last seen her- the resemblance to her mother starker as she matured. He would like to be able to say something, those lines which mean little but are expected to be voiced: "Glad to have your dad home?" or some other such bland sentence, whitewashing the violence which had shattered all their lives. 

"I think I owe you a dance." He said, trying to sound offhand. 

"Please, I'll pass on the dance if you don't mind."

"Oh, you wound me."

She rolled her eyes and some of her sparkle returned to her. There couldn't have been much banter at this home recently. 

"How about a drink sometime then?"

They were both aware neither of them would take up this offer. It was his version of an apology and she accepted it easily, having long ago moved on to other matters; Peter Jakes had not caused her any sleepess nights and he was fine with that. 

There was no time to say anything else, for fear Thursday would hear. Morse had never told Thursday about Jakes being at the club with Joan. He was good at keeping certain things quiet. Could almost say you'd be able to rely on the bugger to do that. Perhaps that's why he cut such a lonesome figure sometimes, having taken on the secrets from so many others, unable to share them but holding onto them, setting them alongside his own memories and secrets. Peter knew only too well how isolating secrets were. What were the things Morse couldn't voice? What did he never tell? 

"Oh, Fred dear, it's Sergeant Jakes come to visit." Win's charmingly worried face appeared from the kitchen, calling out to her husband. "I hope it's not just for work."

"I promise it won't be." 

There was such kindness shining in her eyes and something touching about how she wiped her hands on her apron and smiled at him. She had a solid core to her at the same time which Jakes experienced when she trained her gaze on him. 

"You're getting as bad as Morse, you need feeding up. I hope you're not working yourself too hard." 

He assured her he wasn't. 

"Can I get you some tea? Something to go with it?"

He accepted the offer and moved into the sitting room. Thursday was sitting on the couch, focused on the paper, his pipe firmly in place. 

"Jakes." 

He already looked more like himself, like his Inspector. There was only so much healing a hospital could do, Jakes was convinced. The rest was down to the woman busying herself with the tea things and pressing Jakes to have a slice of cake. 

However one thing remained missing from Thursday's life; work. The sense of purpose, of contributing, even just merely doing. He hoped the reason for his visit would help, even a bit. Clearly still convalescing, there was not a great deal Thursday could do. However they did desperately need his statement as to what happened on the night of Deare's death. It worried Jakes, considering the fate the jounalist had met and what they had tried to pin on Morse. Perhaps their struggle would only begin with Thursday's statement. Morse would want to give one too then, despite how questionable his word might be to some. Then there was the issue of how to protect them. Bright had to have some plan in place if this was the route they were going to go down. Or was it the case that without Deare it would be easier to continue the investigation?  
A thought struck Jakes as he took out his notebook. What if they were playing into the hands of those seeking to protect themselves? As strongly as he needed to see Deare being named for what he was, he did not want to see all the blame being shifted onto Deare, as deserved as it may be. Dead men don't talk and once someone was was publicly held up as the villain, well, that was it, wasn't it? The public, the station would believe justice had been served and all would be forgotten once more, only to repeat itself in the future, by those other smaller players in the background who were able to cover their tracks, thanks to the Freemasons, thanks to their own sodding investigation. 

Jakes bit down on these new concerns , not willing to tell them to Thursday just yet. Bright, he had to talk to Bright. Morse too. 

Colour crept into Thursday's grey face the more they talked, him telling Jakes what to note down to chase up at a later point. 

"We're going to have to talk to DeBryn. There has to be a way of proving Deare shot me. Angles of the bullets, that sort of thing. At the very least, we need to show how it wasn't Morse who shot me."

"Do you really think they'll try that tactic again?" 

"We have to consider it. If they were willing to do it once..."

"They'd have to argue that Morse was in it with Deare; then they'd be willing to admit to what Deare had done but implicate Morse too." 

"It's certainly one way of making all their problems go away. They could try and say Deare killed Standish, not to frame Morse, but because they were worried he knew too much and would talk. No matter how flimsy it might sound, I wouldn't put it past anyone trying it on. We have no idea yet who will be leading the investigation at Cowley. We have to be prepared. Deare was the battle. This now, this is the war." 

 

\--------------------------------------------------

 

Jakes sat at his desk, cigarette clamped between his teeth, seeking to put some order on all that he had discussed with Thursday, aware that he had to meet with Bright soon. He cocked his head at his wrist to check the time. Bright was currently ensconced with DeBryn and Christ knew what they were talking about. He saw Strange moving about the office, chatting to everyone he passed. Word had reached Jakes over pints down the pub that the Constable was increasingly involved with a certain Brotherhood. So much for his advice then. In some ways he could understand Strange's thinking on joining the Freemasons- understood it but couldn't approve. From now on he would have to be careful about what he told Strange. Of course he would continue to be part of the investigation but beyond that, Jakes could not say how much he would trust him. Sometimes it was bloody exhausting, constantly having to screen and check what he was saying. 

Morse sat across from him, frowning at something he was reading, his fingers covering his mouth. It had been some weeks since he had stormed into Morse's bedsit and ended up in bed with him. They saw each other daily at the station and it was much the same as before. The subject of that night had not been brought up and they hadn't seen each other outside of work.  
He wasn't avoiding Morse; he needed though to be sure that they could continue as colleagues in spite of what they had allowed to happen between them. Not so very long ago he had been sniping at Morse to get his typing done. It was only in recent times they had reached some sort of unspoken understanding; he couldn't place a huge amount of faith in how strong such a truce was. So much of Morse was unknown (or unknowable, he wasn't sure), and unpredictable. He had to measure the man's reaction and treatment of him in the aftermath of that night. 

But Christ, he'd like to do it again, and more. He held his lighter to the cigarette tip and surveyed Morse. The night had ended messily, had left him with a bad taste in the mouth. Most of his encounters of this kind did contain contradictions and conflicting feelings; the charge and attraction, losing himself in the moment, coming, holding another person, but always followed by the desire to remove himself from the situation as soon as possible and forget it. He preferred flirting in all honesty: the meeting of eyes, sharing lines back and forth, promising all sorts of wonderful things, allowing himself to play, and well, let's be honest, show himself off a little. He often found himself fiercely wishing for scenes like the ones he saw at the cinema, where exquisiteley dressed men and women shared sharp dialogue over countless cigarettes and cocktails. He thought of Jane Russell in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" or Clark Gable in "It Happened One Night". 

But was that not what he and Morse had? Unfortunately their backdrop was industrial coloured walls and the same bloody suit every day (on Morse's part), the dark interior of the pub and mizzle of rain. Such was the difference between reality and the pictures. Lacking the right setting, he had failed to see he had the right opponent in front of him all along. 

Some of the man's particularly abrasive retorts came to mind and he smiled around his cigarette. Morse, who during this reverie had turned slightly and was watching Jakes from the corner of his eye, saw this smile and answered it with the subtlest change in the lines around his eyes. 

"I heard you wished to speak with me Sergeant." The Doc's smooth voice broke in upon the moment, much like a pebble splashing into a still lake, destroying the fragile picture which had formed there. "But if you are engaged in something else..." He trailed off. 

"No, not a bit." He stubbed his cigarette out and led Max into another room. 

"It's the Deare case." 

"Isn't it always these days?"

"We're in the process of taking Inspector Thursday's statement. We want to pre-empt any potential attempts at pinning Thursday's shooting on Morse." 

Max nodded. "Well, even for such a convoluted case, that will be straightforward enough."

Jakes looked at him, eyebrows raised. 

"Yes, really, Sergeant. Deare and Inspector Thursday helpfully left blood stains where they fell and we have photos of the crime scene. We'll have to return to Blenheim Vale at a later point to confirm where the bullet lodged itself after Deare shot Thursday. It will amost be relaxing to do something so routine as plotting the journey of a bullet. Certainly easier than trying to draw any useful conclusions from an autopsy on a body that has been buried for fifteen years."

Jakes nodded at him. 

"Is there any word on someone claiming the body?"

"No." There wasn't much else to say on that subject. 

Jakes turned to go when Max spoke again. "You're playing a fairly dangerous game, by the way."

"You what?" 

He faced the pathologist who continued to watch him with mild interest. "You and Morse."

Jakes already knew no-one else was present but he still swivelled from left to right to check. "I don't know what you're implying..."

"I am aware of what I'm implying and so are you Sergeant. Though I must say, I am more perceptive than the average bloke, so I highly doubt anyone else would cop on to it."

Jakes tried to keep his breathing even while his mind scattered off in dozens of different directions, working out what angle Max had on this and what he intended to do with his newfound information. 

"Please, do be at ease, I have no intention of using this against you, or against Morse."

"Why are we talking about it then? And how did you know for that matter?" He couldn't restrain himself from asking. 

"You look at him too often and for too long." 

"Jesus Christ." His entire life could come down like a hosue of cards over this. His stomach took a queasy dive and he put his fingers to his lips. 

"It was inevitable I would notice, since I too unfortunately find my gaze straying towards him too often and for too long. I am well placed to notice if someone is doing something similar." 

It took a moment for Jakes to fully understand not only what the Doc was saying but what else he was inferring by it. He would never use what he knew against them for he understood only too well their predicament, being in it himself also. 

"Don't look so astonished, Jakes. Just because I deal with corpses every day does not mean that I too lack a pulse." He spoke even more quietly than usual, ensuring only the two occupants of the room could hear what was being said. 

Questions started to form on Jakes' lips and he rejected each one, not having the foggiest where to start. He liked the Doc, held a great deal of respect for him.

"I'm sorry." He said, a word he used very rarely, meaning it on this occasion. 

"Whatever for? I do assure you I resigned myself to this fate quite some time ago. I am not experiencing any jealousy or any other such petty nonsense."

"Have you- made it known to-?"

"Yes, I did. You can picture yourself how gobsmacked Morse appeared. But he was very kind and very clear. Friends, esteemed colleagues; that is all. We have never spoken of it since."

"Then why are you telling me now?"

He intentionally moved on from what had just been said. He believed any efforts at making sympathetic noises would be construed by the pathologist as pity. Jakes respected that.

"Just to tell you to be a shade more cautious. All you need is for someone such as Constable Strange, say, working it out and blabbing about it. These places, the walls have ears and eyes and tongues. Morse is already at a disadvantage, you know that. He makes things difficult for himself on a daily basis and that's not even taking into account how the Freemasons bear a grudge against him, as well as the impact of the Deare case. That will never entirely fade away."

"So, be careful because all Morse needs is something that will not just hold him back but will mean the end of his career."

"You have hit the nail on the head."

He wondered when the Doc had realised how he felt. He tried to imagine the conversation taking place between Morse and DeBryn. He could see the Doc toning down his archness for once, and Morse's open face looking, well, looking the way he had when Peter had told him about Blenheim Vale. 

"Thanks." Jakes said, once again meaning it, this underused word in his vocabulary. "Me..." He couldn't believe he was saying this. "Me and Morse, it's not- we aren't-" 

"Oh, I'm aware of that too."

"And you'd-like to be?" 

He wasn't asking to pain the pathologist, not at all. The questioning was only to gauge what the situation was and to adapt and act accordingly in the future. 

Max smirked mirthlessly. "I would've, given the chance, but there we are. The world is a funny place." He held Jakes' gaze evenly. "It's not meant to be. It's the wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong people even. Morse is irritating enough on his own- could you imagine us at close quarters? I don't think so, somehow."

A grin flickered across Jakes' face. 

"Anyway, who could put up with me? I talk too much and my job title tends to put people off. I believe my place in life is less that of a Lord Byron and more that of an Auden." 

"Who are they when they're at home?"

"Ask Morse."

 

\------------------------------------

Jakes strode towards Morse's bedsit, the Doc still much on his mind. He had understood that the two of them had something going on and hadn't advised against it. He had simply suggested they be a bit more discreet. Did that mean Max approved? At the very least it indicated acceptance. He didn't want to think about DeBryn anymore. There were too many secrets everywhere, a thickening web he feared getting caught in. 

Morse let him in and Peter removed his coat before accepting the drink held out to him. They sat down on the couch together and he admitted to himself that he had, in a way, been looking forward to this part of the day. 

"Lord Byron. Who was he?" 

"Why do you want to know that?" 

"I'm testing you, clearly. Let's see what use that Oxford degree was." 

"I didn't do English literature." 

"Really? The way you quote the stuff it surprises me you didn't." 

"I never understand why people find quoting poetry so remarkable. All I did was memorise some lines I liked reading. I didn't write them myself." Morse took a sip of the whiskey. 

"He came up in conversation today with someone. So I'd like to know who he was and next time I won't be left looking blank." 

"A good way to approach education, filling in the gaps you don't know about."

"Yeah, or just making it look that way." He thought of Max's titbit on Glessner Lee. 

"Lord Byron. Romantic poet, hugely flamboyant and notorious. He did everything to excess, got into huge debt, had countless affairs with both sexes. Very scandalous man of his time."

Definitely not Max, judging by that description. 

"Auden?" 

"This also came up in conversation? Who were you talking to?" 

"An irritating, over-educated little shit of a witness."

"Auden was quite the opposite to Byron. Had a tendency of falling in love that wasn't ever requited and wrote poems about it. Married but that was purely pragmatic."

"Can you quote either of them?" 

Morse considered for a moment before reciting: 

"But on earth, indifference is the least we have to dread from man or beast.  
How would we like it, were the stars to burn  
With a passion for us we could not return?  
If equal affection cannot be  
Let the more loving one be me." 

Peter allowed the words to stay with him and experienced not sadness for Max, but instead a great admiration for him. 

"Alright, that was the mopey poetry. Now how about some of the sexier stuff. From that Byron."

Morse had turned towards Peter, resting his whiskey on his narrow thigh. He had unbuttoned his shirt at the top and untucked it from his trousers. 

"Peter. Did you just ask me to recite sexy poetry to you?" 

"Impress me."

"Don't know any Byron off by heart."

"Interesting. You memorised Auden and not Byron. There's something very telling in that Morse." 

"Yes. It's an indication of my opinion of Byron's writing." He drained his glass and set it aside. "However, there is another poem by Auden you might prefer." 

"Try me."

"Underneath the abject willow,  
Lover, sulk no more;  
Act from thought should quickly follow..."

Morse's voice had thickened, hitting deeper notes and Peter heard very little of the content of the poem, only the sounds; for while he recited the lines, Morse softly and deliberately shifted towards Peter, moving into his lap, one hand resting on his chest, the other curled around the back of his neck. He put his lips to his ear and murmured the words lowly, his hair and breath tickling him maddeningly. He put his hand on Morse's leg and the other under his untucked shirt. Morse ran his lips along his jawline and changed position so that he was now astride Peter. He breathed the last lines before kissing him, and oh, this kiss spoke of many nights spent alone, tossing and turning, spoke of how they could see themselves together and see themselves when they would be apart but they could not envisage how they would go from that one state to the other; this kiss was not desperate or fearful but exploratory; this wasn't a prelude to getting off, this kiss would get them both off in and of itself.  
I can do this, Peter thought as he sank into Morse's neck, grazing his teeth over the skin there. He could do this. And perhaps, both he and Morse, in some strange way, were lucky indeed.


	12. Chapter 12

He didn't like this. This morning after business. Well, he certainly enjoyed aspects of it- waking up to a warming, welcoming body, seeing what Morse looked like after a night slumbering in various inelegant and sprawling positions; early morning sex could be considered a positive too, he supposed.  
He and Morse had yet to find a balance, a comfortable rhythm when it came to this area. The first time had been a disaster, even Peter had to admit that. All that he'd wanted was for it to be fast, mindless; ridiculous to expect anything to be mindless when Morse was involved. In contrast, he had been hesitant, uncertain and on occasion, blushed furiously and Jakes had grown incresingly edgy at how long it was taking, which only served to put the other man on the defensive. Awkward sod, he'd thought mutinously to himself as he smoked lying beside him afterwards, neither of them saying anything. 

And yet- and yet a few days later they were enacting the same steps, instead of being put off and retreating, they were driven to do it again. Though they were both still incapable, or merely unwilling, to voice their wants and wishes, and even often to listen to one another, this time some brief moments of hamrony were found in their utter disharmony. Morse seemed as if he had been goaded into being more direct and Peter managed to allow himself to be still under some of the man's more meandering touches. And so they kept trying, refining, learning. 

Peter wished he could blame Morse entirely for this, for complicating simple matters as he always did; he was a mixture of boundless lust and enthusiasm coupled with an old-fashioned prudery and distaste. In his inimitable way, the man wanted too much and too little all at once. It would be easy then to blame Morse. Difficult Morse. But Jakes knew Morse was reacting to how he behaved. Sometimes it was as if he were outside of himself, able to watch as gestures jarred and as Morse's gaze grew more watchful, also the outsider, always, and Jakes simply pushing him further back even as their bodies lay together.  
Always the awareness remained with him though. That the moment when such prickliness and suspicion ceased fully between them, when there were no sharp words or silences, that then would be the day this would end. Three months had passed this way and summer had spilled over Oxford, the sandstone becoming golden under the May heat, the colours brighter everywhere except for inside of Cowley Station. 

Still. Bloody nuisance this was. Peter sat up in bed, not bothering about staying quiet; he had learned that Morse was a heavy sleeper. He groped for his cigarettes which he'd left beside the bed, and lit up. Neither of their bedsits was ideal. He didn't mean the decorating or space, it was that neither of them fit into the other's place. He had eventually had Morse come back to his one evening and spent most of the time being ticked off. The man had no concept of personal space. Not only did he take up most of the bed, he also took up most of the flat without exerting himself too hard- he draped his cheap shirts on his couch, left whiskey rings on his table, nicked his cigarettes too, cheek of that, left his newspapers, cupboards and sheets in disarray and was oblivious to the mess and to his fuming about it. After Morse left on these rare occasions, he had to spend ages ridding the place of his touch, putting it back to its usual order, its carefully cultivated appearance. That was what he did well, Morse, he brought disruption wherever he went. He toyed with the idea of doing the same to Morse as he did to him, and decided not to everytime. There were other tried and tested methods of irritating him. 

He preferred it when they used Morse's flat anyway. Meant he could choose when to leave instead of having to wait for him to bugger off. Knowing he could simply get up and go was something Jakes had to have, whether it was physically, at work and being able to walk out the door for fresh air, or be it in terms of knowing he had enough extra money stashed away to move to London. He had no plans to move to the capital in the near future, though he would eventually, he was certain of that. But for the moment, knowing he could do it was enough, knowing that no matter how bad things might potentially get he still had money enough to take care of himself, to not be poor. Ever since he had joined the force he had saved as much money as he could, yet he had to buy rounds at the pub, supply himself with smokes, as well as splashing out on cinema tickets and investing in good clothes. There was never enough- he could see all too easily how he was a mere few steps away from not having enough. So, well, he had to look out for himself, didn't he? If he didn't take advantage of the tips ready to be fed to greedy journalists, someone else would, and why should they benefit instead of him? He was a good Sergeant, he didn't need to be told that, and he didn't see how letting slip some tidbits for money affected that. He knew what it was like to have no money and he had sworn since Blenheim that he would never be reduced to that again. 

Lighting another cigarette, he glanced slowly to his left. The newspaper lay where he had tossed it last night, feigning a casualness which Morse didn't question. The other man had read the article already, hell, everyone had. Except Jakes. Reading it anywhere in public was out; but that meant yesterday he had had to go around knowing that everyone down the station, everyone in bloody Oxford, knew something he didn't. Or thought they knew, would be more accurate. 

He threw the blankets back, covering Morse and took the few steps to the table where the newspaper lay and brought it back to bed. He settled himself once more and eyed the still folded pages, only able to see a couple of words from the fatly inked headline. 

"You don't have to read it." came to him, muffled under the blankets. 

"Of course I have to fucking read it."

Morse had turned on his side, his cheek pressed against the pillow, his hair a riot, and his eyes seeking Peter's. This is why he always came back, he supposed, returning that gaze. Because for all their clashing and wrong steps, Morse never failed to let such petty irritants slide in order to listen to him, to try to understand (even if such attempts were sometimes brushed off), and to be able to hit on that which he most needed.  
Before, if Morse has reached out to rub his thumb across the back of his hand he would've shaken him off. Not this time though. He made no further move, and lay beside him, appearing to be half-dozing but was instead staying quiet until Peter had done with the article. 

"You've read it, I assume?."

Morse sighed a confirmation. 

Front page article. Good on Miss Frazil. Damn good journalist. He'd be willing to give her any tips in the future but he knew he wouldn't get any dosh in return for it from her. 

And there they were once more, those facts from a file of lies, but this time attention was actively drawn to how the words betrayed themselves and covered up what had taken place. He felt scarcely tethered to the here and now, an observer looking on at an observer to a past being rewritten once again, having been rewritten and rubbed out countless times before. 

"Which do you think is worse-" Peter began. "Ugly words or having no words at all?" 

"I'll have to say no words at all is the worst. I'd choose words every time, no matter how ugly they are to some."

"Of course you would."

"There's a difference between ugly words and false words." 

Peter slapped the pages with the back of his hand. "Well, both are in evidence here." The slippery sentences the Doc had used to hide behind were laid out here, dissected under Miss Frazil's undecorated paragraphs. 

"What good are words sometimes? I didn't have these words when I was in Blenheim Vale. Even if I did, no-one would've listened."

A weariness touched Morse's eyes. "No, words aren't much good at all. But sometimes that's all I ever have."

Peter struggled through a few more paragraphs before stopping again. "It's as if I was being told what happened and why it was wrong. I don't need that. I know what happened. I know why it was wrong."

"Did you know that then?"

Ash fell from his cigarette onto the paper, smearing the letters with a grey dust. No, he hadn't. He hadn't understood anything. Nothing seemed to follow the rules they were supposed to or the rules themselves changed each day; punishment came from good, bad came from bad and one day people said one thing, the next day they said the opposite. From this mess, Peter had allowed himself to understand what had happened and the wrongness of it. It lay just outside of all his thoughts on most cases, where gulit and innocence, victim and perpetrator were constantly confused, his own limbo state informing his understanding of all those who passed through the station and the jail. 

Peter shook his head. No, he hadn't known it then, not in those terms. All he knew was that he hurt, he was scared and it had no end and he didn't know why it was happening. 

"I wonder what the others think of it." Morse sat up, now shoulder to shoulder with him. 

"I'd say Benny didn't manage to read the whole article." Peter could picture him, in his dressing room, that infernal dummy beside him, mocking him with his own distorted voice for throwing the newspaper into the bin after skimming a few names. Henry and Hilary would've read it together. Nicholas would've read it sitting at his work desk, almost as if discharging a duty before folding the paper and returning to his work. 

"This was good." Jakes indicated the section he meant, holding the newspaper between him and Morse. Miss Frazil had gone on to name Deare, Dr. Fairbridge, Landesman and Wintergreen, not holding back from elaborating just what they were believed to be guilty of, and what had been uncovered thus far to support such claims. She spoke about the investigation which was about to be launched. She cautioned against villifying only these four, and that instead her readers should imagine that behind each of these faces there were many more, and a structure, an institution which was enabling them all to hide. 

Peter put the paper aside, trying to focus on the day ahead of them. They would have to go to Cowley and see what impact the article would have on the investigation about to be launched. 

"After this week, we will no longer be working on this." 

Morse nodded. Jakes shrugged in return, at a loss for how to communicate what he had been hoping to. 

"We've been working on this for over six months now. What do we do when we hand it over?"

"I don't know. Take the next case, I suppose. Keep a sharp eye on the investigation. I honestly don't know."

He wouldn't miss the Deare case but he feared it would break the spell he and Morse seemed to have been living under. How were they supposed to bridge their pre-Blenheim and post-Blenheim lives? Would this all just end? Perhaps all this had just been an extended act of pity.  
No. There was one thing Morse didn't do and that was act nice out of pity- whatever this was, and however it ended, it had nothing to do with that. Morse would've avoided the issue if he had been aiming to be 'kind'. Peter Jakes hated nothing more than being 'niced' to. 

He turned his head and bumped noses gently with Morse, resting his forehead against his. He took these few moments before stroking a finger tip down Morse's cheek and tipping his chin up so they could kiss. He responded eagerly and soon he lay on his back, his legs wrapped around the small of Peter's back, his hands clutching at his shoulders, his face pressed into his neck, inhaling or moaning or biting, Peter wasn't altogether certain. 

 

\----------------------------

 

"Ah. Sergeant Jakes."

Jakes nodded at Bright and went to sit down where was indicated for him. The station had just been briefed by Bright as to the investigation about to descend around them, pushed through in wake of the article written by Miss Frazil, and the further articles which were promised (or should that be threatened) by her. All officers had been clearly told by Bright as to how they would be expected to work with the investigators and behave towards them. After delivering this he had added, "Sergeant Jakes, a word?"

He had walked past Morse's desk, not looking at him, Max's words ever present in his head as he worked. Though Max had only warned him off for Morse's sake, he had taken the caution to exercise restraint to heart. He had his own career to consider too. He'd already begun turning his thoughts towards his Inspector's exam. Hopefully the investigation had to stand to him. That would be a nice touch, using the work he did agianst Deare and his kind in order to get a bit of extra notice in his attempts to shinny up the ranks. 

Bright was folded up into his chair, clearly enjoying his cigarette, his eyes half-closed, taking a few moments to celebrate quietly what they had achieved. Jakes said nothing but he shared how pleased he was. 

"Sergeant, I have to commend you particularly on the work you've done on the Deare case."

Jakes dipped his head, acknowledging what was said. "So far. If there's any further work to be done..."

"We do appreciate that, however-" Bright looked at him more closely. "Are you aware of the hours you have clocked up on this case over the past few months?"

He hadn't considered that. Of course he had had to pull a lot of overtime but he'd hardly thought about it, never mind totting it up. He didn't think it would even be possible to halfway accurately work out how much extra time he'd put in. He'd done what had been needed, that was all. 

"I didn't intend to claim it back..." Jakes began but Bright stopped him with a light shake of the head. "Sergeant, I am recommending that you take your leave. I am not criticising you or your work." He pre-empted Jakes. "I simply believe that you should take a holiday. You are no good to me overworked. You are an excellent officer, you have proved that over and over on this case. Have a break, and come back then, yes?" 

Swallowing back protests and the sickening feeling of being edged out once more, Jakes nodded and made the noises of thanks he was expected to. 

He passed Morse's desk again and couldn't avoid him this time. 

"What did Bright want?" 

"I'm to be rewarded for all this slogging on the Deare case. I've been told to take my holidays."

"When?" 

"The end of today and I'm off for nearly three weeks." 

"You don't seem too pleased about it."

"Would you be?"

"Well, I don't ever enjoy holidays really. There's nowhere I want to go. I get bored after the initial novelty wears off."

Jakes shuffled on the spot, not wanting to talk to Morse too much at the station. "Pub after work?"

"Do you even have to ask that?" Morse muttered before turning back to his files. 

 

\-------------------------------

Peter arrived in the King's Arms first, managing to snag a table down the back and he sat over his pint, his mind alighting on thought after thought. He saw Morse approaching, his own pint in hand. 

"You could've ordered for me if you got here first."

"Ha bloody ha. You're hardly going to pay for the drinks that come after this one, so I'm at least going to make sure you get the first one."

"Hmmph." Morse just looked at him out of the corner of his eye. 

"Oh, give it over. You still haven't paid me back for the whiskey."

"Can that not count as a present to celebrate my getting out of jail and your instrumental role in that?"

"Then you should get me a bottle of whiskey to celebrate me taking forced leave by your logic."

"Forced?" Morse queried, eyebrow cocked. He took a long draw on the pint and Jakes watched him, the angle of his neck, the movement. 

"Well, not forced, but, y'know."

"Why don't you want to take a holiday?" 

"I've just worked so bloody hard on this case and to hand it over and saunter off on holiday seems such a waste. I'll come back and everyone will have forgotten."

"Forgotten what?" Morse narrowed his eyes at him. "The work you did? The case? Perhaps. I think you'll be fine though."

"You what?"

"No-one will take your place while you're away." 

"Don't be so sodding ridiculous." Peter tossed his cigarette packet on the table and fumbled for his lighter. 

"You stepped up when me and Thursday weren't there. Bright knows that, Thursday knows that, and I most certainly know that. You won't lose the position you've worked for." 

Peter dared to look at Morse and was met by those unwavering eyes. "All right, all right."He muttered, wanting to stop the conversation but at the same time, felt somewhat calmer about not being at the station for a while. 

"So, what'll you get up to then?" 

It was Peter's turn to give Morse a sharp look, and then allowing a smirk to touch his lips. 

"You seem fairly keen to know what I'll be doing. You going to miss me or something?" This earned him another withering glance which Peter enjoyed. "Ah, I don't know." He tapped his lighter on the table. "Or...well. I was thinking I might go see my mum." 

Morse failed to cover the mixture of shock and curiosity which broke out on his features. At least he had the grace to try to. This was exactly why he didn't want to bring it up. But some weeks ago the idea had sneaked into his mind and he hadn't been able to dislodge it. 

"But I don't know where she is."

"When did you last see her?" 

"Probably when I was 12. I...didn't see her much after I got sent to Blenheim. And it was hard to be around her. She didn't deal well with dad dying and that's why we were sent to other homes in the first place." He took a steadying breath. "Last time I saw anyone it would've been my sister, Sinéad. Would've been 16. We don't keep in contact much. She lived in London at the time. And I never asked her about mum, I just...I stayed a couple of nights and left."

"You going to start with your sister then?" 

"Yeah, I think so. I'll go to the address where she last was and work from there. It'd be funny to see how many nieces and nephews I have now. There was already one when I saw her last."

"You're an uncle?"

"Strange, isn't it?" His throat was so dry. "Another round?" This time he didn't put on the show about making Morse part with money. He stood at the bar, considering whether to get a couple of whiskies in as well and decided fimrly against it. 

"Sinéad?" Morse said as Jakes placed the pint in front of him. "That's an Irish name isn't it?" 

"It is."

"There an Irish connection in your family?" 

"My mum. She came over to find work when there was none in Dublin. She got a job, married an Englishman working in the building trade. She never left. He let her choose the names."

"Doesn't Sinéad mean 'God is Gracious'?"

"How do you know these things, Morse? Yes, it does." 

"She was religious?" 

Jakes nodded. 

"She called you Peter. Saint Peter, the one holding the keys to heaven." 

"Well. Peter, yes. My mum named me Peader but of course no English school teacher would ever say that, so I became Peter." 

"Names are a, ah, tricky business." 

"Indeed, Endeavour." He drew out the word and Morse visibly winced and Jakes decided to leave it for the moment. Something to go after at a later time. 

"Could she have gone back to Ireland?"

"It's possible. But she couldn't have gone on her own. Unless she got better since the last time I saw her."

Silence fell, which Morse broke. "Good luck." 

"Thanks."

They drank. 

"Morse."

"Mmmm?"

"You must also have some amount of time off worked up."

"I keep forgetting to take it. As I said, I'm not really a holiday person."

"Would you consider...coming with me?"

"To London? And wherever else you might potentially end up?"

"Yes."

Please come with me. I can't imagine doing this on my own. And somehow, in spite of the blows you've taken and the things about you I know you haven't told me, you keep facing the world head on, sharp corners and all, and I could do with some of that, bloody hell. 

"I could do with a detective on this."

Morse turned his head slightly to the side and a gentle smile curved his lips. "Alright. Why not?" 

"Right so." 

He smiled back at Morse, briefly. He was glad they were in the pub, If this had taken place in his bedsit it would've been too much, too intimate. 

Morse took out the paper and folded it. "You got a pen I can borrow?"

"Sure." He took one from his pocket and handed it to him. The other man bent his head over the crossword.

"Don't mind me." Jakes said. 

"I won't. But I might ask you for your input on some clues." 

"I highly doubt that. Just do your puzzle and don't annoy me." 

He drank his pint slowly and silently watched Morse frowning over the black and white squares.


	13. Chapter 13

"Don't tell me you've got a phobia of boats as well."

"I am not phobic about boats. That would imply I have an irrational fear of an actual boat itself."

"And you don't?"

Morse glared at him, trying to muster up as much spite as possible though the effect was somewhat dampened by how grey his face was and the shape of him huddled up inside his coat, bracing himself for the next onslaught of waves or any other perceived dangers. 

"Are you afraid of drowning?" 

Morse graced him with another look which indicated exactly how crass he considered Jakes to be. Peter felt some sympathy for the man, looking so miserable; at the same time, he couldn't quite hold himself back from teasing. 

"Can you swim?" Jakes pressed. 

"Yes."

"Well then, even if the boat DOES go under, you'll survive."

Morse closed his eyes against the words and appeared to be muttering some curse against Jakes under his breath. He'd had his fun now; he'd stop. 

"Cigarette?" He offered. "Smoke will settle your stomach." 

Morse shook his head. Jakes shook one out for himself, and cupped his hands, protecting the fragile flame trying to come into being. "I would perhaps advise against imbibing the hard stuff, if that's what you're currently considering." 

Jakes sat beside him, watching the grey waves rolling endlessly, content with the journey. 

"I somehow imagine you don't travel that much." Jakes said. 

"Every so often, I get these ideas in my head about travelling to Greece or Italy. But aside from the effort of getting there, there is no easy way to get back home, that's the problem I have with it." 

"What do you mean?"

"Well, that I'd probably like Italy, but for about two days and then I'd be happy enough to leave again. But it's not exactly a hop back to England, is it?" 

"I guess you'll never go to Australia so."

He snorted. "Why in God's name would I want to go there?" 

"Adventure?"

"I get plenty enough adventue in Oxford."

"You've never dreamt of being somewhere else?" 

"Well, if I did, it wasn't somewhere very far away." Morse glanced at him sideways. "I never picked you as an avid traveller."

"I'm not really. Haven't ever been out of England until today. But, y'know, travel, it's glamorous."

"Glamorous?" He indicated the ferry they were on. 

"If you can afford to travel regularly, and far away, then yes, it is glamorous." 

Peter didn't know what he would've done if he hadn't been able to imagine himself away; whether it had been flying into the cinema screen, inhabiting the actors, or wondering how to be a bird, or envisioning what warm foreign countries were like. Morse had had his opera, he supposed, which took him away from place, to somewhere abstract, lit up and unchanging, away from everything. Peter's refuge had been sought in other places; Morse's in absence of place. 

"Nothing will ever compare to your Oxford though." Jakes lit up another cigarette. He wouldn't mind going out onto the deck, feeling the wind against him and the sea spray on his face, but he worried what it would do to his hair and attire. 

"It isn't my Oxford. Only went to college there. Didn't even get the degree in the end, did I?" 

"You know, sometimes I think you like the fact that you didn't get your degree."

"What?"

"Well. It's like you went to Oxford but never gratefully and grovellingly accepted the honour as you were perhaps expected to. I've seen you around Oxford dons and academics. It's like watching a hedgehog jabbing his quills out."

"I think you mean a porcupine."

"You know what I mean. But it's like you went there and just threw the honour back at them, that you didn't need the piece of paper to hold up and prove you're equal to them." 

If nothing else, Morse was a contrary bugger, and Jakes could all too easily see this lad with a chip on his shoulder scorning the game, not simply by refusing to take part, but to be in it, to be an insider and to still refuse to play. Arrogant, definitely. But could be that it was all he had, knowing his mental capacity was above most others. Jakes well understood having to cling to the one thing which gave you an advantage in this unfair world. 

The ferry was lumbering into port and he and Morse went to line up to disembark. 

"Morse." Peter said as they traipsed off the ferry. "If you even pretend to know how to pronounce what's written on these signs, I will make you buy all the rounds tonight."

Morse said nothing but still stared at the sign reading "Dún Laoghaire" for a while longer, clearly flummoxed by it. Jakes made a mental note to ask his sister how to pronounce a few of these words so he could slip them into casual conversation and enjoy Morse's reaction. 

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------

A week ago had found them travelling to London. It had not been the best of beginnings. Peter remembered his sister's address from all those years previous but he had baulked and nearly fled back to Oxford. A street away from her house he had stopped and started repeating "I can't, I can't." He had ducked down a small alleyway, pacing around in jagged circles and smoking. Morse had waited silently, allowing Jakes a minute or two of this. 

"Have you been back here since you last saw Sinéad?" 

"No."

"That's more than eight years ago. A long time. It can be hard to try and go back after such a gap."

Jakes stood closer to Morse, aching to be able to touch him. He thought of how Morse's accent still slipped on occasion, and remembered his father had passed away over a year ago, a subject still never raised between the two of them.

"How do you go back?" Jakes said, hardly posing it as a question, as if doubting it could be answered. 

"Generally I'd say it's not a choice, so how you go back doesn't have very much to do with it." 

Morse had put his hands in his pockets and was looking at the ground. "Some people can't ever go back. Others can't ever make themselves go forward." 

"And some are a mix of the two." Jakes said, meaning Morse as much as himself. 

"Going back doesn't automatically destroy what you are now, what you have worked for." Morse was looking into his eyes directly now, trying strongly to impress this on Peter. He'd nodded in return, hoping it was true. 

Morse dropped his voice further. "I'd kiss you now if I could." 

Jakes gave a short "hmph" but accomapnied by a slight smile. They continued to walk down the street. 

"I suppose I have a hard time reconciling myself to how drab it all looks." Jakes murmured. "These little grey houses and the little grey streets and the little grey people. It's such an average story."

"You're worried that things have got even worse since you were last here."

"Why else wouldn't she contact me?" 

"Why wouldn't you contact her?" 

"Ach." Jakes looked away. 

"She might have been waiting for you to get in touch because otherwise how can she be sure you want to hear from her?"

"I can't know what her motivations are at all since I don't know what kind of person she is, seeing as I haven't hardly seen her since I was ten and she was thirteen."

For a moment, he expected Morse to come out with some rubbish about how it was different with family, that passing of time and the worst of circumstances could not break those bonds; then he thought of what little he knew of Morse's family life- his mother had died when he was young, there was a half-sister so that meant a stepmother somewhere, who he never mentioned, and then his father, of course. The whole station had heard about it and yet Morse hardly acknowledged the expressions of condolence he had received from some of his colleagues. Jakes was not naive enough to presume that the man's silence indicated he wasn't mourning his father, yet his studied blankness on that subject seemed to show uncertainty, or even a bewildered agitation he had practiced at quietening. He suspected Morse would very much like to grieve for his father but felt, for whatever reason, that he could not, or was not allowed to, and so fought some battle with himself, also known only to himself as such.  
Instead of responding to what Jakes had said, contradicting him , or reassuring him, or even seeking to change the subject, he said nothing.

 

\----------------------------------------------------

Their combined budget had stretched to a small B and B near the seafront. Jakes doubted Morse had much interest in the scenic view and was rather more focused on any of the many pubs they had strolled past in the town.  
Jakes stood in front of the mirror, fixing his hair, while Morse lay on one of the two single beds, looking for all the world as if he was half-asleep, sprawled and crumpled; Jakes knew him better than that however. 

"You're being suspiciously quiet."

Morse half-shrugged and shook his head. "Do you want me to say something?"

"No. But I think you want to say something. You have that expectant look on your face." 

"It's just my face."

Peter gave him an "oh-really" eyebrow tilt and went back to dealing with his hair. Morse came over to him and only half-meeting his eyes said: "You look good, Peter."  
He put his fingertips to the back of Jakes' neck and kissed him on his jaw. "Do you still want me to come with you? I can easily go somewhere else."

"No. Just don't say too much, alright?" 

He counted his cigarettes before putting them into his coat pocket and checking his watch. Without saying anything else he moved towards the door and Morse followed him. 

Jakes wasn't sure whether he wanted to arrive before Sinéad or to have her there already. On the one hand, waiting for her to intrude upon his world could wrongfoot him but perhaps if she was late it would put him in a better position, have her apologising for being late. Oh bloody hell, he couldn't think like this, as he would an interview with a suspect. 

They moved through the pub and Jakes' eyes found her; he knew right away it was her, even after nine years not having seen her. They did look alike, and he wavered between finding it comforting and wanting to unsee the similarity because it only made the differences much sharper. Peter was a black and white sketch, made up of precise lines, unforgiving. Sinéad was a sfumato church wall painting; her pale skin was creamy rather than devoid of colour, her thick black hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders and her figure was like water, like waves, swelling softly and curving in and out. He could feel Morse's reaction to registering the contrast between him and his sibling. No matter how well he was put together, or how good he looked, he was aware it didn't compare to how his sister appeared. It was the difference between ending up in Blenheim Vale and clearly ending up somewhere much kinder, and if not kind, then at the very least, neutral. 

She held her hands in front of her, clasped, a smile dimpling her face; she was holding herself back from hugging him, waiting for an indication that he would accept, or even welcome, such a gesture. He instead sat across from her, already taking out his cigarettes.

"Can I get you a drink?" Morse asked Sinéad. "I'm Morse, by the way, I work with Peter."

"I'm Sinéad. And yes please, same again." She indicated her nearly empty glass. Jakes would be sure to ask Morse exactly what he thought he was doing, suddenly offering to buy rounds at this late stage of the game.  
Morse returned and Peter drank gratefully while Sinéad talked, telling him about his two nieces and one nephew, and how her husband Steve was finally settling into work over here as a school teacher after having to move because of mum. 

"Can I get everyone another drink?" Peter was on his feet before anyone could respond properly. 

He wouldn't call it a mistake, coming to see his sister and his mum. They had arrived at her old house in London and found she had moved on. After some digging they had found out about her moving over to Ireland with her invalid mother. He wasn't even going to ask what had prompted that decision- could've been pragmatic, it was cheaper to live in Ireland after all; or it could've been sentimental, a yearning to return home now that England wasn't one anymore. No, it hadn't been a mistake to come, but as soon as he had learned of what had happened with his family, he knew he would get nothing from the visit. Whatever benefit there may have been in telling someone about Blenheim Vale, the same could not be applied to having sought out his family. He was glad he had done it, otherwise he would be not be rid of the thought. Other than that it had no huge impact. He felt no joy, or comfort or connection, rather a sense of duty, an evening, a visit, to be endured.  
As he waited for his drinks he caught a glimpse of the newspaper, something about protests and unrest. He pulled the paper towards him and scanned the first few paragraphs, resolving to look into that later. He had heard nothing about in unrest in the Northern part of the country, a place he scarcely gave any consideration to.  
He gathered the glasses to him and slowly returned to the table, readying himself to hear about his mum and how nothing had changed since his father had died. 

 

\---------------------------------

After ensuring the door was locked, they had contemplated the sleeping situation. It was one of those nights when Peter would actually quite like to have someone beside him, but it would be impossible to fit them into one narrow single bed and far too risky to scrape them across the floor and push them together. Morse solved this by tossing the pillows and blankets onto the floor and after undressing and maneouvring themselves awkwardly, they found a tolerable position. 

"You don't want to see her tomorrow, do you?" Morse asked. 

The night had ended with Jakes agreeing to come and visit his mother the next day, writing down the address and all. 

"No. But I will." He paused. "Don't take this the wrong way, but this one I'll do on my own."

"Of course."

They lay there in the dark, enjoying the peacefulness of it. Peter didn't want to kiss Morse right now, or cuddle, or have sex or even take his hand. Still. He wanted him there. Even if he did take up all the blankets and all the bloody space in the bed too. Jakes snorted lightly. 

"What?" Morse muttered, half-asleep already.

"I'm just thinking how we should sleep on the floor together more often. It's the only time both of us have enough spce. You can spread yourself out as much as your little heart desires and I'm not pushed off the edge or left shivering in the cold."

Morse mumbled feebly at him, making no further effort at a retort. 

Having him here helped keep his mind from running on the day's events, stopped the knotted thoughts which threatened constantly to brim over uncontrollably, going through his fingers like water. Holding all this at bay wasn't what Morse gave him; rather they entered some blank, empty area together, existing as if suspended. Peter welcomed it, all the time aware that it was a mere retreat and it wasn't strong enough to push back everything and that it held no future. Yet while he accepted this, the briefness of it being something he was used to, this time he believed he could comprehend why his mum would be incapable of leaving her bed after the person she had shared it with was no longer with her.


	14. Chapter 14

Something soft was irritating Peter's skin. He woke fully and found Morse's head resting on his chest, his hair the culprit for agitating his chin and neck. A few strands had even strayed into his mouth, which he tried to remove using sharp breaths and his tongue. Morse lay against him, his arms and legs flung out like a cat, slumbering, fully extended. He shifted and curled his frame in tighter to Peter, a noise of protest just audible, as if his wakefulness was being experienced by the sleeping constable somehow. 

Peter tried to remain as still as possible, becoming intently aware of each tremor his limbs made involuntarily. He felt a heaviness, completely different to the pleasant weight of Morse half-on him. This stone-heaviness, however, was also caused by the same person, by how unfair it was of Peter to get the other man involved in all this. What a ridiculous demand to place on him, asking him to accompany him as he tried to make contact with his family again. Oh, bloody hell, what HAD Sinead thought last night? His concerns for Morse were forgotten as he considered how suspicious the two of them had appeared to her. Who else took their colleague on such an intimate, and simultaneously mundane, journey? And someone of the same sex to boot, Christ, what had he been thinking? Selfish. Selfish, selfish, selfish idiot. What good had this trip done for Morse? 

Peter moved gently, slowly turning himself so that he faced Morse and placed his arms around him, positioning himself carefully and resting his chin on top of Morse's head. His thumb stroked over the curve of his shoulder and his other hand knuckled lightly over the hollow of his back. Morse's hands were crushed between them now and his breath broke damply on his skin. Poor Morse. What had this journey been for him? Ever playing the role of the observer, watching silently as Peter had gone further and further back into a life that had nothing to do with any context he had known Peter in. His idea of Jakes, any claim he might have on him, became meaningless here and he had no other choice but to wait for him to return from a place he couldn't follow to, and bring him news, or not. Yes, we can share the secret of Blenheim Vale; yes, you can come to old houses no longer occupied; yes, you can see my sister. No, you cannot know what exactly happened in Blenheim, you can never know how it is to live with that everyday; no, you cannot meet my mother. Was Morse saddened or hurt by such contradictory demands and repellings? Or did he accept it, recognizing in it the mirror of his own sharply contained life? 

This mess of thoughts made Peter want to impart some comfort to someone who looked so hungry for it. He had always scorned such a sentiment; in Blenheim Vale he had seen all too frequently how a gesture of comfort could become a blow or was used as a pretext for an unwanted caress. 

Hoping Morse would remain asleep, he held onto him and thought about how he should not have brought him on this trip. If the past few months had been a drive for him to return to Blenheim Vale and all that it represented, then soon he would need time away from Morse, and Morse away from him. The fact that he had come with him to London and then to Dublin in itself was a strong enough indication that he and Morse needed a reminder of how it was to not be around one another.  
He eased himself off of the pale body clinging to him and tried to suppress his shivering in the unheated room as he sought his clothes. 

 

\-------------------

His mother's figure as she sat at the table, dealing herself a game of patience, told Jakes instantly that he should not have come. No option to turn around and leave was open to him however, with his sister in the next room and the set of his mother's shoulders betraying that she knew someone was present, and not someone she was used to. He sat on the couch, away from her, and watched her continue laying the cards and picking them up, discarding, her eyes scanning the rows. 

He shouldn't have come for Peter was no longer part of her world. She tolerated her daughter, as she didn't have enough physical strength to to ward her off, or to do without her. In a way, she would have preferred the anonymity of a home, being tended to by unobtrusive nurses who would withdraw once they were done. She hadn't wanted to return to Ireland; that had been her daughter again, believing that a return to her old country would revive a spark of her previous self. Duty and a misguided sense of family and what was right, and an attempt to make the past better had caused her daughter to act. His mother had no room for him, Jakes received that loud and clear from her hunched up frame. She was tending her pain, keeping it alive, stoking the embers and she would survive off of this. There was nothing in her which wanted to even acknowledge her son's presence, for she was aware of the threat he posed. Fifteen years lay between them, an absence unlike her daughter's presence. She knew that this indicated that Peter must hold within him that which she also had- and she refused it. She lined up black and red, Queens following Kings and refused the burden of her son's life. She did not want it and she did not want to know anything about it. 

And Jakes was furious, swelling up with a poison, bloating him. So, he lit a cigarette and deliberately told this unresponsive figure everything; how he had arrived at Blenheim Vale and tried to understand what had happened, and why this was happening, and how he had learned to not question it but instead found friends bigger and stronger than himself and somehow got through. He told her of the screaming, the beatings, the all too frequent visits to the doctor who tried to teach him to mistrust his own memory, and so he learned instead how to lie and read other people. He told her of the strange caresses he had been subject to, the acts he had been forced into on his knees, how he had been crushed by a fully grown man tearing into his already bruised body. He told her about the fate of his friends. And then he stood to leave, knowing he would never come to see her again and would only perhaps attend her funeral. He knew he would begin to send along a portion of his wage regularly to help out Sinead. He doubted that his words had had any impact on her, that they had most likely not been perceived at all. However he hoped viciously that one piece of all that had now been removed from him and lay within her instead. 

 

\---------------------------------------

 

It was only when they were on the ferry returning to Holyhead that Peter's body began to tremble as his words came back to him and his voicing them. He reached for his cigarettes and made several futile attempts to light them.  
He and Morse were sitting outside this time, the only ones braving the cold and the blasts of ocean spray. After watching Jakes struggle with the lighter, Morse took it, and the cigarettes, from him, and put the cigarette between his lips and held the lighter up to it for him, cupping his hands around the tiny flame. His eyes rested on Morse's profile, the shape of his brow, the lines fanning out around his eyes, his hair being buffeted in the wind. He tried to imagine how it would be to tell Morse what he had just inflicted on his own mother. He would be outraged on Jakes' behalf but would keep it hidden; well, mostly. Peter would be able to tell from his eyes how furious he was. He would listen, and Jakes could envision how it would add another line to his face, another wrinkle as a result of the world doing something to further disappoint and sadden him.  
The words had come so easy, as if they had been crouching in wait, ready to break out and be heard as soon as he allowed them to or slipped up in spite of himself.

"I want to tell you, Morse, but I just can't." He shook his head, ash scattering on the wind. 

"You don't have to tell me, ever. If one day you do, you can." Morse turned his gaze to the deck, emphasizing the two lines running trenches on either side of his nose, his mouth pulled downwards. 

"We won't always know each other. We won't always be in Oxford together." 

"I know. But, nevertheless, you can contact me, somehow."

"Will you ever tell me? About, I don't know, about whatever it is that makes you so..."

He said these things in the knowledge that the other man would not take offence at them; but also, said it in the knowledge that Morse would not tell him anything. Morse gave him a tight awkward smile, putting up that one defense between them that they would never manage to overcome.  
Jakes touched the back of his hand against Morse's, in understanding and forgiveness. How could he criticise Morse for doing exactly as he did? 

"Look at the two of us." Jakes snorted, flicking his cigarette butt away. 

"Yes, still here, in spire of it all." He didn't make it sound much of a victory. 

Peter turned his head towards Morse. "I shall be up before dawn and surprise you all." 

"You remember that." 

Jakes nodded. He found himself grasping for those words on occasion, felt for like a talisman, restoring the jauntiness to his stride. 

"You should read Hardy." 

"Are you having me on Morse? I'm not going to read any of your fancy classics, not when you can give me the important quotes on demand." 

"You should try him. He deals with all the important things." 

"Well, we do that on a daily basis in our job, alright? I'll stick with the pictures, if it's all the same to you." 

The ferry began its jerky movements into the port. 

 

\-------------------------------------------

Peter took to reading each line of all the newspapers he could get his hands on, even going to the newsagent's which stocked foreign papers, and read the Irish ones. Autumn was beginning to take hold of Oxford, the leaves of gold and russet and deep orange matching the colour of the city's walls as if they had been created for that purpose.  
He read about the increasing unrest in Northern Ireland- the Catholics who had no rights whatsoever, while Protestants held multiple votes; of entire Catholic families unable to find a place to live whilst a single Protestant woman was granted an entire house to herself. He wondered when the tipping point would come, when the unrest would turn into something more and what form it would take. 

He and Morse were sitting in the pub one evening in late September, Morse working on his crossword, and Peter reading the paper, focused on another case of discrimination being reported in Northern Ireland. 

"It interests you a lot, doesn't it?"

Peter looked up. Morse gestured at the paper. "Northern Ireland? Yes, it does."

"Why?" 

"Why?" He considered for a moment and told Morse what he understood of the situation, how people, those most vulnerable, were being treated. 

Morse had pushed aside his own newspaper and held his quickly emptying pint glass between his hands. Jakes trailed off, realizing how long he had been talking at the man for. Well, made a change from the other way round, he supposed. He raised his own glass to his lips and before drinking he mouthed a "What?" at Morse.  
For Morse was looking at him strangely, as if he was trying to avoid seeing him somehow even though he had his eyes trained on him; a smile sharply twisted his mouth before flickering out like a candle. He had that expression he wore only rarely, at a certain passage in a beloved opera, or the moment when all the pieces of the puzzle in a trying case finally slotted together, a vision of quiet happiness, albeit a happiness aware of its own passing in the moment that it fell upon him. 

"You should go there."

"Morse, I only just got back from a holiday, I'm not going over again."

"Not for a holiday. To work. You should get involved in what's going on there."

"Work in Northern Ireland?" Jakes scoffed, trying to throw off the thoughts he had scarcely been able to acknowledge had been underneath his interest in the area. 

"You'd be good over there. You have the interest, an actual wish to engage and understand, which most lack. Yet, you're not soft about it, you're going to get the job done."

"I don't even know what the job is." 

"I don't think they do either." 

Jakes shook his head at Morse and stood, heading to the bar. He ordered two scotches, noting that this would be the first tine he'd drink hard spirits since that night when Morse asked him to go to Blenheim Vale with him. The evening at hand called for it somehow. 

"Why are you trying so hard to send me away from Oxford?"

"I'm not. I'm making suggestions as to what is out there. Peter, I think everyone at the station knows you're not going to spend your entire career at Cowley. Much too small for you."

"You just want to be rid of the only officer here who's proper competition for you." 

"I can stand on my own merits, thank you very much Sergeant." 

There was no bite in the comment however, rather it was spoken as a simple statement, debunking Jakes' attempt at derailing his line of questioning.

"Is it because of, y'know..." Peter darted with his eyes, hoping to indicate the two of them, however indirectly. 

"Oh no. However, it will end. I don't know when, but it can't last. It's been a good run. We've been lucky."

Jakes fumbled for the words; how to talk about this in the pub, without risking anyone overhearing them, what code to use or turn of phrase to employ?

It wasn't love. Even that doesn't last. Could it have ever been that between them, love? Jakes had never thought about love too much. It had not played a great role in his life, nor was it something which played around the edges of his thoughts before falling asleep. He had wondered sometimes whether he was at all capable of the emotion. He didn't love Morse, and he didn't wish that he did either. What could you do with love between two men where they worked? Yet this absence of love did not make their situation any easier. They weren't one thing or the other. They weren't friends, not enemies, not romantically involved but not just lovers, not just colleagues- even in this Morse refused to sand off his sharp corners and fit neatly into any box or file. He exceeded any name Peter sought to put on him. 

"So, since it's going to end, it'd be less messy for me to just go elsewhere? Less trouble down the station?" Jakes said, hardly moving his lips. "If that's how you're thinking then I don't know how you manage with the Doc there every day." 

This was the first time Peter had indicated he knew of anything about DeBryn's inclinations. Morse merely nodded to himself. 

"That is slightly different. I feel no desire whatsoever for Max. Even when this ends, whenever that is, I'll still have that desire." He spoke as quietly as possible, leaving the "for you" unsaid. "I will still have it even if I don't act upon it. It might be good to remind ourselves of what it is to not, ahm, work together." 

Morse was echoing his own thoughts from when they were in Ireland. He drank the Scotch, feeling it warm his insides as he thought about how it would be to see Morse regularly, and work with him, and remember him coming apart under his hands and now they would not do that again, that the time for that had passed. 

"I know. I'll go somewhere. Not just yet though." 

 

\----------------------------------------------------

One morning the phone rang on Jakes' desk. It was Henry Portmore. 

"They're releasing the body, Peter." 

It was the first Jakes had heard about the Blenheim case directly. He was surprised for a moment at how he took the news, at how he had begun to think of it as the Blenheim case, and not as Blenheim Vale. When had that happened? It had crept up on him somehow and he was only now pressing his fingers to that bruise and he found that it didn't hurt quite as badly as it used to. Pain remained but it was bearable, unlike what it had been for so many years. 

He had deliberately tried to avoid anything to do with the investigation, knowing that the only victory won would be in the newspapers, nothing more than that. Miss Frazil had fought valiantly on; Deare had not escaped her judgement and she reported on every step of the investigation, and repeatedly called for further inquiries into the case, as well as similar, sickeningly similar stories which were just beginning to break, tentatively following after the path laid open by Blenheim. Perhaps that's what it had all been for, showing that Blenheim was only the tip of the ice berg. 

\---------------------------------------

The funeral took place on a late October morning. Morse came with him to the graveyard but didn't follow over to the small group gathered by the freshly dug ground, instead saying he'd be around when Jakes was ready to leave.  
Jakes approached them; Henry, Hilary, Nicholas and Benny. He focused his gaze on the too small coffin at their feet. None of them knew how to behave, how to be. How did one act appropriately at a funeral taking place fifteen years after it should've, with no family present, only a ragtag of childhood friends?  
The service was brief, for there was very little to be said. The gravestone was squat and even briefer; Pete's name, his date of birth and the year of his death. They would never be able to say for certain what day he had murdered on. 

The little coffin was lowered into the ground all too easily, its lightness the one thing which disturbed Jakes and remained with him afterwards. He stood with them, Hilary and Henry huddled together closely, Benny with his head angled away from all of them, and Nicholas with tears silently slipping down his face. 

"Shall we get a drink?" Henry suggested briskly, a touch of what Jakes imagined his don's voice to be. 

Jakes shook his head. He could understand Henry wanting to force some semblance of normality and even camaraderie into this event, but he couldn't make himself go along with it. 

"Maybe another time, yeah?" He said. Hilary nodded, understanding and agreeing and Henry accepted it, pulling her closer to him and gazing at Pete's grave for a moment.  
As Jakes took his leave of them, with promises to meet up at another stage, he wondered if he would see them again. He had received word yesterday from Bright that his request for a transfer to Belfast had been approved. Bright and Thursday had supported his choice. Others, particularly Strange, had been surprised by such a decision. Max had scarcely commented upon it, had acknowledged it and then moved onto the business of the day. Morse- well, he and Morse had already said goodbye really, hadn't they? 

He watched Morse, his head bent, hands thrust into that dreadful coat he seemed so attached to. He was walking up and down the rows of gravestones, stopping to read each inscription. It wasn't that he was looking for the grave of someone he knew. He was curious, curious to glean what he could from the inscriptions, and use that to spin a full story of their lives. He was also reading them to feed his own habitual melancholic state, the wallowing in the past which Jakes had always scorned in the other man. It was a dangerous indulgence, as bad as his over-fondness for ale and whiskey. These stones must be bloody poetry to him, hinting at lives ended too soon and those left behind, the gravestones where the writing had worn away, passed from living memory. He had never known if Morse was religious or not. Jakes had long ago stopped believing in any God figure. It was a waste of time and wouldn't do anything to help him in trying to get ahead. 

He drew closer to Morse and couldn't stop himself from noting how the man had almost been made for the autumn setting. Orange, yellow, brown and wine-red leaves lay thickly on the ground, and a few drifted through the air, the colours matching Morse's reddish hair. Autumn was surely Morse's season, not winter as Jakes may have once thought. The end of summer, the threat of cold and the stripped landscape. Autumn with its traces of warmth and pale reflection of the summer months. This was Morse's time of year. 

Morse said nothing as Jakes stood beside him, gazing unseeing at the gravestone in front of them. What was there to say? A little boy had just been buried, a kid who had been unwanted for most of his short life, unlistened to, abused and thrown away. A nice gravestone couldn't begin to put that right, but Jakes also knew he couldn't allow himself to fall into the trap of thinking too much on it.  
Churchbells rang out across the city, calling worshipers to their services. He thought of where he would be moving to in a few weeks, and he thought of how Morse would remain in Oxford, and never leave. He had not expected to experience such a dull ache and wished he could take Morse's hand. He would have to wait until they were safely indoors, but by then the moment of needing to grip the other man's hand in his own would have passed.


	15. Chapter 15

Unchanged Oxford remained. He should've been prepared for that, he supposed. Oxford, in all its strange insularity and stone, allowing only for the repeated cycle of Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity, and little else. Peter Jakes could've walked these streets with his eyes closed; indeed, he had often found himself walking through Oxford as he daydreamed, eyes closed against the light. Having spent the past ten years in a place where buildings crumbled and shattered into unrecognizable heaps of rubble he had expected to see even Oxford reduced to dust.  
The only thing which had changed was the fashion the students were sporting, Jakes noted with distaste. No style these days. Bell bottoms, Jesus Christ, that's what they were called. 

He wasn't sure yet if he found Oxford's standing still a comfort or not. One thing he was sure of, however, was his need for a drink. 

Once in the door of The King's Arms and a pint in front of him Jakes sought to orient himself, to gather himself after not only returning to Oxford, but also after seeing Inspector Thursday. Well, he wasn't an Inspector anymore, was he? Jakes would never be able to think of him in any other way. Sitting across from Thursday had jolted him. Peter never noticed how he himself aged; the face he attended to each morning looked very much the same to him as it had over ten years ago. Each sign of moving from late middle age and into true old age was unavoidably etched into Thursday's face. When he saw this in his Inspector he truly understood for the first time that he was nearly thirty-eight years old and though he may not recognize that in his reflection, those he met on a daily basis did. They would see a man leaving his youth behind as he approached forty, good-looking, but worn, lines creasing and crisscrossing his forehead and around his eyes, black hair beginning to grey at the temples. He'd retained his figure, perhaps he was even a shade too thin, speaking of missed meals, countless cigarettes and a one person apartment. Though right-handed, he now smoked using his left hand; a close encounter with a bombed out street had inflicted permanent scarring on his right forearm, the shining pink and strange whiteness of the damaged tissue creeping over the back of his hand. He knew however it could've been much worse, when he considered what had befallen some of his colleagues.  
He drank, brushing those thoughts away, tuning his ears to the student banter around him.

And this was why he had come. Part of it, at least; the part he had been able to understand and admit to himself. The other part belonged to five in the morning, sleepless but with his eyes firmly closed. He had come back for this sense of time standing still. In spite of certain things he associated with Oxford the memories were mostly good. They were at the least the most vivid from his life, even more vivid than those from Blenheim. On many a day his memories of Oxford had served to blank out the horror of daily life in Belfast. He had been young and cocky and spiky; he felt great affection for this version of himself. He knew that he had changed, however he couldn't put into words exactly how so. He did not spend time with those he had once known, so they could not comment on it. His life in Belfast was contained in itself, with no reference to what came before. He'd scarcely even been back in England in a decade. And now that his time there was over he found himself returning here, a homing pigeon let out of his cage, simply following what he knew. London had been strange, not unwelcoming but the city had been indifferent to him feeling so out of place. 

The drink tasted of sitting outside on a late autumn afternoon, Thursday smoking his pipe, sandwiches crinkling in his coat pocket, Morse across from him, fingers tangled in his thatch of auburn hair, frowning at his newspaper. He could see it perfectly, taste it, smell it; it hung in his mind on a gigantic cinema screen which wrapped around him entirely. 

From there his mind couldn't be halted, the chain of associations inevitable and irrational; the taste of whiskey, the feeling of his fingers gripping Morse's thighs, strange classical music, Blenheim Vale, Nicholas Myers' silent tears at Big Pete's funeral, Max's gaze above his glasses, Joan dancing in her orange dress. These moments held him, always. But now they were brought to the fore of his mind. These moments held him and perhaps that was why glimpsing Morse across the pub did not even shock him. It was merely an extension of the inside of his head, as if Morse had just stepped out of those scenes and ghosted easily into this now. 

He had not seen Jakes and so he took these few moments to gaze at him and adjust to this version of the youth who frequently accompanied him as he lay down to sleep.  
He could recognize the young constable underneath the cloak of added years. The once reddish-blonde hair was being flecked in white, having passed over the greying stage completely. If his hair had faded, his eyes had darkened, the light blue deepening to metallic grey, standing out more against these lighter shades. The lips had become thinner, reaching ever downwards. Though still slim there was a certain slackness to his frame and his skin, a carelessness with his clothes and his body which Jakes remembered, but was increasingly leaning to disdain. 

Peter drained his glass and rose to his feet. As he moved towards the bar, Morse still unaware of his presence, he found himself thinking about their last evening together in Oxford ten years ago. Morse had been quiet, as had Jakes. Words had always been a precious commodity between them; when they spoke it was always with intent, whether the intent was to needle and irritate, or to communicate important information about a case, and the few painful occasions he had had to try and explain something of Blenheim Vale to to Morse and Morse had continued to resolutely say anything of himself. There had never been meaningless small talk or even words given over to moments of lust, or in the aftermath. They talked endlessly in their jobs, arguing, issuing orders, crying out warning calls, resorting to the basest curses. This didn't even factor in the constant commentary Peter's own mind inflicted him with, and he could only imagine Morse had something similar. Their bedsits had been quiet places, marked off as being completely apart from work. 

They had spent that evening gently soaking, steadily emptying glass after glass until the bottle was gone. The absence of alcohol would usually have been a cue for Morse to leave; instead Peter found himself with Morse sprawled across his lap, cheek against his thigh. They remained like this, and the only movement Jakes allowed himself was to alternately stroke Morse's hair and then to grip it before releasing it once more. Morse had twisted around, pushed himself up and kissed Jakes, a closed mouthed kiss, but none the less intimate for that. And for once, Peter had allowed himself to be lost in this kiss, knowing it would be cut short by his 7.06 a.m. train. So, he had held Morse's face between his fingertips and kissed the corners of his mouth, moving over his cheeks and up to his temples.  
Morse had left, and a whiskey tinged memory fuzzily relayed back the image of saying goodbye at his flat door, him swaying a bit towards Morse for another kiss, forgetting how exposed they were. Morse hadn't and gently put the palm of his hand on Jakes' shoulder and pushed him back, saying goodbye as he did so. 

Peter placed himself beside Morse, saying nothing, waiting for him to become aware of his too close presence, and then irritated by it. This didn't take too long- Morse looked up, ready to meet the intruder with a furrowed brow and grimacing mouth. Upon seeing Jakes it cleared instantly, to be replaced by a gentle smile, a light twisting to the line of his lips and a glint in his eyes, suggesting almost an amusement at seeing his former colleague. 

"You made it back to Oxford in one piece." Jakes was thrown by the deeper note in Morse's voice, all traces of the young man banished forever. 

"Alright, Morse? Still here?" 

"I'll always be here." It was a statement, spoken with no regret or any other undertones. 

And Peter found himself swept by desire, need, stronger than he had probably been capable of ten years previously. At first, he sought to swallow this down and hide it, but, still capable of reading Morse, he saw the same flame brightening his eyes. They stood, facing one another, not knowing how to proceed and knowing exactly what they both wanted.  
Morse shifted his gaze to his empty tumbler, and then cleared his throat.

"I believe I still owe you money for some Scotch."

Jakes gave a bark of laughter, louder than he'd intended. "You do. And many other rounds you've never stumped up for."

"I have Scotch at mine if you want to join me? Catch up on the past ten years?" 

Peter merely nodded and followed Morse out of the bar. 

"Where do you live these days?" 

"Just off Squitchey Lane. Finally got myself a house."

"Big?" 

"It's enough for me."

Unmarried, as Peter had imagined. He didn't comment on it. "Is it alright if we walk?" 

"Of course. Couldn't drive you home if I wanted to."

"I feel like reacquainting myself with the town." 

""I never would have picked you for an Oxford romantic, lover of the dreaming spires and the city by moonlight." 

"I'm not, but after ten years in Belfast you do learn to appreciate Oxford."

Morse fell silent as they meandered away from the town, crossing over the river. The quietness of his surroundings was strange. He had grown accustomed to short nights- or were they long nights- cut through by gun fire, screams, the sound of crunching metal, angry voices in different accents. 

"Every time I read the paper, every time I saw something about Northern Ireland I thought of you." 

Peter knew then that what Morse's image had been for him in Belfast, he had been for Morse, a talisman felt for in times of danger, or of weakness. 

He didn't ask about Cowley Station, or Strange, or DeBryn. To do so would be to acknowledge that the ten years had passed and Peter wanted to hold off that moment for a little longer. 

They reached Morse's house, a simple semi-detached two storey standard. He had clearly done scant work on decorating or changing the place, had just filled it with his records and books and that was enough for him.  
Morse was uncapping the bottle of Scotch in the kitchen and Peter padded up behind him, stopping just short of touching him. He stood, waiting. Morse made no movement, his hand curled around the uncapped bottle still. Jakes leaned forward and nose first found his way to the back of Morse's neck and pressed his lips to the skin there. Morse let go of the Scotch and turned around, his hips rubbing against Peter as he did so. They were chest to chest, eye to eye, mouth to mouth, and then they were mouth on mouth, tongue on tongue. It was not that the years fell away and they were back in 1968 once more; nor was it that he had been waiting and waiting for this moment, for such a return, no matter how brief. It was more that this belonged to one of those irregularly occurring moments Peter experienced in his life, pockets of time, arising unexpectedly, to be grasped at without question, blindly.  
Many imperfections were a part of this moment with Morse. Their entire time together had been imperfect, more flawed than not, when he considered how they met, the secret of Blenheim Vale, the secret of their trysts, ten years without a word. And this strange relationship had been the defining one of his life. He had shared more of his life with this man than he had with anyone, and without asking he believed it held true for Morse too. 

Morse's hands crept to his face, and Peter was convinced he was messing up his hair on purpose. He would, wouldn't he? The hair tousling earned Morse a slightly too sharp nip on the lip, eliciting a protesting grunt from him. Jakes breathed a quiet 'ha' into his mouth. Morse returned to kissing Jakes almost over-eagerly, and he knew that if he had his way, this would be rushed through, galloping towards the end. This time, however, Jakes wanted to do this at a slower pace. Before he had never been fully able to enjoy sex, always unable to silence that self-consciousness which kept him at a remove from what he was engaged in. But now, now he badly wanted to undress Morse and touch and be touched until they could stand it no longer and gave in. 

He broke the kiss and grazed his teeth up Morse's neck, feeling the man shiver. "I think we should take this upstairs." Peter murmured into his ear.  
They scrambled up the stairs together, whiskey forgotten, shoving their shoulders against the bedroom door. Peter pushed Morse onto the bed and took a moment to remove their shoes before joining him. He lay on top of Morse, experimenting with rubbing their clothed crotches together, lightly, then insistently, varying the pace. Morse kept attempting to sit up under Jakes and work on removing their trousers. Peter gripped Morse tighter between his thighs and he fell back, finally allowing Jakes an unimpeded view of the man underneath him. 

"It's been ten years, don't you think I'm going to take my time?" He punctuated this by gripping even harder again and was rewarded with Morse making a sound which he took for enthusiastic agreement. 

Oh, he was thoroughly enjoying this. Is this what he'd been missing out on all these years? Bloody hell. He reached down, deliberately pausing between each button as he undid them, and then focused on removing his own shirt. So strange to have this body under him which was at once familiar and completely unknown to him.  
By this time, they had shed their clothes and Peter was absorbed in reacquainting himself with every inch of Morse's body, pressing his nose into the crook of his elbow, licking along his hips and mouthing at his inner thighs. Morse let his hands roam over Peter's body too, grasping at his shoulders, smoothing down his back and over his arse. Peter lowered his mouth to Morse's, bruising it with a kiss before saying, "Tell me you have something I can use."

Morse looked lost for a moment and shook his head, trying to rid himself of his confusion. "Bathroom. I only have Vaseline."  
Jakes reluctantly removed himself from Morse and went to retrieve the essential product. They fell into a tangle of limbs, laying beside one another, face to face, and after preparing his fingers and Morse's entrance, Peter played with him slowly, eventually working one finger inside him, followed later by a second, reveling in the expressions which played out across Morse's face and the sensation of tightness gripping his fingers.  
Both of them were hardly able to hold back any longer and they scrabbled against each other's skin, Jakes turning him onto his back and positioning himself at his entrance, Morse urging him on with tiny gasps.  
And then he was inside Morse, rocking against him, only half aware that the deep noises he heard were coming from his own throat.  
Morse came first and Peter swallowed his partner's high-pitched moans with his own mouth before his own orgasm washed over him. Instead of resisting it, or even being somewhat disappointed in himself as he once would've been, he let himself be pulled under by it and drifted off blissfully for a few moments, the world whited out. 

\-------------------------------------------------

He muzzily came back to himself, feeling his sweat cooling on his skin, his cheek pressed against Morse's shoulder, their arms and legs still hopelessly entangled. He extracted himself in order to seek his jacket and find his cigarettes. Morse already had an ashtray on the bedside table and Peter wondered if Morse had been picking up his bad habits. Silly thought. He returned to the bed and balanced the ash tray on his bare chest, and positioned his hand over it, alternating between drawing on the cigarette and tapping the grey flakes into the hollowed belly of the receptacle. 

"You know that Joan married Strange?" Morse asked. 

"You what?" Jakes turned to him, his strong eyebrows straining particularly hard to reach his hairline. Morse nodded, a small snort of amusement escaping his mouth. 

"Now that is a wedding I should've liked to have seen." Peter said. 

"It works though. Somehow." 

Jakes allowed himself to picture the two together and found Morse wasn't wrong; he could see Strange catching onto Joan's sparky answers, learning how to follow the darting of her mind, being a solid, strong match for her. There would be bemusement on Strange's side on occasion, and much affectionate teasing from Joan. 

"Christ. Strange married. Joan married. Whatever next."

"You never took the plunge, as they call it?"

"No. No, couldn't really even if I wanted to. Wouldn't put anyone through living in Belfast nowadays for my sake."

"Is it difficult to find anyone there?" 

Peter stubbed out the end of his fag and lit another one. "It isn't that. More the opposite really. Everyone's on alert, constantly ready to throw themselves to the ground for fear of a gun or a bomb. That kind of atmosphere makes people look to each other, even if it's just for a warm body. You need it some nights, otherwise you'd go crazy." 

He thought of the girls he'd been with in Belfast; for once he had had the rather strange experience of realizing that it would've been less dangerous for him to be caught with another man than to have been caught in the act with a Catholic girl. 

"You couldn't make lasting attachments. You just couldn't. The risk you ran...They tar and feather girls there Morse. That's a medieval practice. If they find a Catholic girl has been seeing a British soldier, they pour tar over her and cover her with feathers. Reality has been suspended over there." He stopped, not wanting to talk about this any more. Those girls were only the tip of the iceberg and Jakes refused to fall under. 

Peter put the ashtray on the floor and faced Morse, aligning their bodies, idly running his fingertips over his shoulders, along his sides and resting warmly on his thigh. 

"What about Blenheim Vale? How...how is that these days?"

"It's not as loud as it was. Does that make sense? Like having a bruise and pressing it and being surprised that it doesn't hurt so much anymore."

He and Blenheim Vale would never be easy companions; yet a certain familiarity had developed over the past ten years. The first time Blenheim Vale had invaded his thoughts at work, he could do nothing but sit at his desk, cigarette burning down to his knuckles, the sheets of his report remaining unwritten as he stared at the whiteness of them. The film had stuttered to a halt, the end of the reel flapping in the air, repeatedly and eventually was reloaded and juddered back into life. Thinking about Blenheim at work, in public, was so wrong, Peter was full certain those around him could see it in his face, read his thoughts. He did not consciously develop a method for dealing with this, he learnt to just allow it to happen. As the years crept by, he found it came to him less and less. It never ceased altogether however, splintered images blasted across his mind's landscape like a bomb, he experienced the cane against his flesh, and as he could not then, he continued to be unable to scream. 

"Blenheim Vale." Peter enunciated carefully, and noticed Morse start beside him. "With Blenheim Vale it's no longer a case of trying to get rid of it, you know? It's there. It's just there. I thought I'd get stronger by forcing it out of my mind forever, but it turns out it makes it weaker to just allow it to be there. Took me more than twenty years to work that out- and I'm not sure it makes sense when I say it."

He couldn't explain to Morse the way he kept Blenheim Vale in his mind. After resigning himself to being wedded to those memories for life, he began to construct his own pictures. He would approach his Blenheim Vale self, Little Peter, who was standing in the the doorway of the home. He'd put himself under his arm, and carry himself out to a green area with lots of tress, far from Blenheim. "There." He'd dump himself down on the ground. "You go and play here and don't annoy me." And he would leave Little Pete there and return to his work.  
Peter was full sure most people would find such acts of visualization odd but he didn't have to justify anything to them, did he? 

Strange. He and Morse wanted to catch up on the Blenheim story rather than catch up on what they had been doing for the past ten years. Though he wouldn't go as far to say those events were irrelevant to them, he didn't need to know what Morse had been doing for the past ten years for them to be able to talk as they once had. And Jakes had no desire to discuss Belfast in depth. He knew he had done some good work there, had somehow tried to hold a collapsing structure together, and minimize the damage. He knew that. He didn't need any confirmation. 

He sometimes wondered what exactly he was for Morse. He knew that for him Morse was a constant, and he didn't have to be present to be so, Peter just needed to know he was somewhere in Oxford. Even before he and Morse had overcome their antagonism (or reduced it to a healthy antagonism), Jakes, though at the time would never have admitted to it, took an odd comfort in Morse's, well, Morseness. He had learnt at a young age that those around him worse masks of respectability and changed quicker than the eye could follow. Peter had learnt to do the exact same himself. He found some security in knowing Morse would never change and could never be other than he presented himself as, he would never smooth his sharp edges. Though Jakes could never allow himself to be that way, he would go as far to say that he admired Morse for his sheer awkwardness.

Morse sighed, placing his hand on top of Jakes' as it rested on his hip. "You staying long?"

"I've no idea."

"Do you think you'll go back to Belfast?"

"No, my time there is over." 

"I know you won't come back to Oxford."

"Not to work. Or to live. Might settle in London." 

Morse smirked. "No might about it, as if you would leave your career to chance." 

"Alright, I'm actively looking to move to London. Happy?"

Peter allowed himself a moment of toying with the idea of staying in Oxford. He could walk back into his job, and better, at Cowley, he knew he was fully entitled to that after Belfast. Property prices were probably cheaper here than in London. Could go back to ruling the roost, get himself a little sergeant to tag along with him. He'd be with Strange and DeBryn, and Morse again, just not the same as before.  
Just not the same as before. That was why he couldn't stay. He couldn't stay in the place that he returned to in those moments between evening and night fall, between sleeping and waking. You cannot live in a place that exists only in between states. It couldn't last, wouldn't bear too close a scrutiny. And close scrutiny is what he would be subject to coming back to Oxford to live. For Morse could simply read him, in between the lines he usually palmed others off with and even worse, he could decode his silences. To be beside Morse day in, day out, and nights too probably, let's be honest- he would be stripped of that last tiny hidden reserve he had kept from the other man. If that were to ever happen, the question was- what would then be the consequence of that? Where did two people go after they had bared themselves to one another in every way possible?  
He couldn't do that with anyone. The understanding that it was even a vague possibility with this man terrified him beyond expression. 

Poor Morse. That skill which made him exceptional at his work placed him outside of lasting relationships too, it would seem. He knew that he himself would not settle down and get married. The thought of children was one he had discounted years ago. He didn't hate children, rather he didn't want to inflict himself on them. He hardly knew what he could give to a lover, never mind what he could give to a child. 

Peter pressed a kiss to Morse's mouth, hoping he could understand the apology in it.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Here my last love died...I was aghast to realise that something within me, long sickening, had died." 
> 
> -Evelyn Waugh, "Brideshead Revisited".

A telephone's over-sharp tones broke Jakes' dreamless sleep. Slight confusion clung to him as he sought to orient himself and make sense of the insistent ringing. Some days he woke up, fuzzily unsure of where he was or what time he found himself in. Years before, he would have imagined himself to be in Blenheim Vale, never having managed to get away. Now, as he began to turn towards his sixties he instead often awoke feeling himself to have returned to Belfast, or he would wonder why when he rolled over in bed that he didn't come up against the bony weight of a freckled frame. He sat up in bed, back of his hand to his brow, tongue sticking tackily to the roof of his mouth. The phone continued braying. 

The walls of his bedroom reasserted themselves solidly and he knew himself to be in his recently purchased London apartment. He cracked one eye open and saw how half his bed was covered by a sheaf of papers- files from a case which he had thought he'd read over before falling asleep. More worrying than nodding off in the middle of perusing dry case notes was the ashtray upturned on the floor. That was getting to be a bad habit with him, lighting up one last smoke before bed and then conking out with the remains still smouldering in the ashtray. He could see the headlines now- Chief Superintendent, survives Belfast, burnt to death by his own cigarette. He'd rather not have his career end on that farcical note, if you don't mind. 

He blearily eyeballed the mass of ash spilled out over the carpet like a blood stain. Slowly, he swung his legs out of bed and onto the floor, avoiding the receptacle and its contents. Perhaps this was a sign he should give up smoking. Hmph. His right hand was already fumbling along the bedside table for his matches and cigarettes. Even with the recent explosion of evidence and research into the link between smoking and certain types of cancer Jakes couldn't bring himself to give up this life-long habit. Some nights he woke himself up with coughing and his fingers and teeth were beginning to take a permanent stain from the countless fags he lit up. He certainly wasn't too pleased about that. He rationalised it to himself in other ways- if he gave up smoking he'd get fat, he needn't worry about passing on second-hand smoke to anyone or dying early and leaving behind any dependents. He had no such dependents, no children, no family really. 

Bloody hell, that damned phone hadn't stopped ringing. He heaved himself into a standing position and went into the hallway. The phone was fairly shaking, or so it appeared to Jakes. He had hoped it would simply fall silent. This persistent ringing at- he checked the clock on the wall- at half three in the morning could mean only one thing. Bad news. The worst. He continued to hope that someone was calling him in a fit of drunkenness, forgetting what time it was. Jakes would gladly bark down the phone at them and hang up. However, though he had quietly resigned himself to receiving some form of bad news, he had no fixed idea as to what it could be, or indeed, who it would concern. Ever since he and his ex-wife, Julia, had managed to build a sort of friendship and understanding out of the ruins of their marriage he no longer received late night abusive phone calls. He found himself worrying that something had happened to her and that he was still noted as the next of kin. Closing his fingers around the receiver he hefted it to his ear. 

"Hello?" He sought to put some steeliness into his words. Initially he was met with silence. Then he discerned breathing. Shaky, irregular. What was this?

"C'mon, I'm not going to waste my time like this."

The breathing continued, jaggedly. 

"Oh, sod this..." He began to take the phone away from his ear but then a cry arrested him. 

"Jakes, Jakes wait..." 

That voice, last heard close to twenty years ago. "...Morse?" This moment passed and Jakes resumed his usual manner. "What in the hell is this man? Do you know what time it is?"

He may as well have still been asleep, or rather in that strange world between slumber and waking, that was the effect Morse's voice had on him. It was so intimate, yet distant, his voice in his ear but his face not to be seen, nor his body to be touched. Jakes sighed- did that not neatly summarise their entire relationship? Well, it was a good start. But the word 'neat' was not the one to be applied. 

"Morse, have you been drinking?"

"Yes. And?" 

"And nothing. Call me back tomorrow, Jesus." He wasn't even fully sure if he wanted Morse to call him again. What was the point? Hadn't they somehow finally brought an end to...their association? It had been unspoken, as so much between them had been and remained. But Jakes had last seen Morse the morning after that night they had their encounter, when he had returned from Belfast. It wasn't that he had wanted to leave. More that he did not know what else to do. He couldn't explain the desire which had consumed him that previous night and how it had burned itself out and how it would be ill-advised for them to attempt to prolong it. He also remained uncertain of exactly what Morse wanted from him, then and now, and even what constituted the borders of what was allowed between them. It was better to just leave, so he had thought at the time.  
And that had been pretty much that. Until now. 

"No, wait..." Morse was definitely struggling to say something. He listened more carefully, straining, pressing the plastic receiver hard against his ear. Was Morse...he couldn't be crying, could he? 

"Max died." 

"DeBryn? The Doc?" He managed somehow in response. He felt as if someone had burned him, a carelessly held cigarette breaking his skin. 

The Doc. Another person he hadn't seen in decades. They'd lost touch once he'd left Oxford. An image swam up from the depths of his memory, of keen eyes peering at him from over his thick glasses. He remembered working with the man, particularly the Deare case, his arch way with words, the revelation of the feelings he had kept silent. Jakes found himself shaking his head, in spite of the fact that Morse could not perceive this movement. The need for a cigarette needled him all over, his lips biting around nothing. 

"I'm sorry, Morse." Was this the way to react? He had no bloody idea. 

"Max stayed in Oxford." The small voice on the line said, and Peter felt the wrongness of hearing the usually powerful voice sapped of its conviction. "The pair of us couldn't really go anywhere else. Well, of course we could but no other city would put up with us like Oxford would. Like we put up with each other."

A faint tinkling noise traveled down the phone and Peter saw that all too familiar image, that memory really, of Morse spilling whiskey into any available container. 

"If you're having a drink, I'm having a smoke. Bear with us a moment?"

Jakes carefully placed the receiver down, fearing he would inadvertently hang up on him. He returned with the packet and cradled the phone between his shoulder and his ear, lighting up. He wished then that they were back in Morse's bedsit, talking about this together, saying what they couldn't say by getting into bed together, and not blaming one another for the things they would never be capable of articulating. Sitting in the hallway of his new flat, the sound of London still half-busy even at this time of night, his ears slowly became alert to the change in Morse's voice and Peter regarded the changed face and body which blankly returned his stare from the mirror across the way; all this served to rudely keep him in the present moment. What use was wishing anyway?

"You there, Jakes?"

"Still here. Still here." He exhaled heavily. 

"We still worked together." Morse continued. Jakes closed his eyes, all the better to picture the other man's- that wonderful mixture of grey and blue. No matter how carefully Morse had held himself and kept his private life unreachable, those eyes had always betrayed him and Jakes experienced the loss of not being able to look at them. 

"He knew me for thirty years, Jakes. Thirty years. Longer than most marriages." 

Jakes allowed himself a slight 'tch'. This was not in reference to Max but rather to himself. His own ill-fated marriage had struggled to survive six years. He had met Julia when he moved to London after Belfast. Simple story really, they were both regulars at the same pub and one evening, she had approached Peter, offering to get him a drink. Her arms, he remembered her having beautiful arms; perhaps that was strange, but they had curved wonderfully, there was just something about them that Peter liked looking at, holding them when he allowed himself. She was a journalist, well used to working long hours herself and understanding of how the job took over your life, so he could not even blame the breakdown of the relationship on that. Julia had rightly dismissed any such attempts as bullshit.  
The wedding had been a small one, only a handful of colleagues from work, his sister, Sinead. Their mother had died some years back, in her sleep. He tried to feel some loss of her but was unable to. She had gone to the death she had been living for so many years. 

The cracks in the marriage appeared when Julia began trying to raise the issue of children. He'd been unable, and unwilling, to try to tell her why children would never be an option for him. There had been silence on his side and her continued frustration, tears and pleading with her supposed husband to tell her what was going on. She'd moved out after the second occasion he had come home, having obliterated himself with alcohol. 

The years had trickled by. Many nights had been punctured by Julia calling him, her working to a deadline. Peter would also be up late working on reports, chasing that elusive promotion. The screaming was gone, replaced by a sad bewilderment at what had gone wrong between them. They got on, didn't they? They'd had passion, surely? She didn't hate him, never had, she just didn't know him, she said. 

And so Peter had told her, briefly, stumbling, leaving out so much and for the second time in his life, and most likely the last, someone had surprised him with their reaction to Blenheim Vale, not pitying him, but rather extending a hand to him to pull him another step forward, his back firmly to that place. A friendship of sorts developed, and a mutual respect, yet on occasion, Peter could still perceive a flicker of "What if" in Julia's eyes. Perhaps she even loved him, in some unshakable way. He just could not reciprocate it. He didn't believe he had ever loved her, yet if he could've loved anyone, if he could've tried...he still liked to conjure up the image of that young woman, approaching him in the bar, leaning into him conspiratorially, challenging him; it had been a challenge which he wanted to take on and yet knew even then he could not fully answer it. 

Once he asked her if she felt he had wronged her, unfairly led her on and wasted her time. 

"No, Peter, not a bit. Everyone has the right to try and find a relationship, a partner."

"No matter how hopeless it is?"

"Even then. Maybe especially then." 

Jakes pulled himself back from Julia, returned to the conversation with Morse, the idea of marriages still playing in the background of his mind. How had the Doc ended up? Happy, he supposed. Content anyway. 

"He put up with me for thirty years, Jakes. No-one else has."

"None of that now Morse, come on."

"No." He cut across Peter fiercely. "Don't you get it? In spite of everything, Max was there, never changed towards me, never lay any demands or reproaches at my door, he just continued there..." Morse stopped himself, his voice no longer his own and so he silenced it before it got any further out of control. Compassion and exasperation coursed through Peter, a combination he had known regularly when he was with Morse. He tried to remind himself that Morse had just lost an old friend and yet, a voice in his head kept grumbling about just how bloody typical it was of Morse. How typical for him to have seen Max's unrequited and unwavering feeling for him as something ideal and noble, even. Poor Morse, it probably fit all too easily with how he had experienced love and its forms all through his life. Jakes lit up another cigarette to stop up another sigh threatening to escape. He had never known enough about Morse's childhood, what it had been like, and now he did not know what the past twenty years had been filled with, or how they had been left unfilled. Morse hadn't volunteered any information; Peter hadn't asked. Had this been out of fear? It had not been out of disinterest, had not even been done consciously. As he sat and listened to Morse gasping and struggling against his tears, he believed perhaps all those years ago he had thought Morse didn't trust him enough. But even if he had, Peter would not have had the strength to listen, much less to respond. Maybe he could try now, try let Morse know that the greatest passions of his life did not have to be the ones which ended tragically and suddenly, or which never happened at all. 

"He did love you." Peter said softly. There was no response, and so he continued, glad that he couldn't see Morse, knowing that if he could he would not be able to say any of this. 

"But his being gone doesn't suddenly wipe out that feeling. And I don't mean that in any sort of religious twaddle type way. You're going to remember Max and keep how he felt with you." 

"But am I allowed to do that? Is it not callous to Max for me to feel that loss when I never was able to give him anything in return?" 

"I don't think that's how it works. It's not like cash, you don't hand it over expecting to get the going rate. It's just...there." 

A sigh and a rustling came down the line and Peter pictured the other man lying back on his couch, head lolling towards the window, gaze focusing on the night sky. 

"I'm going to miss him, more than I realised I would."

Peter found himself wondering how Morse's death would effect him, if indeed he passed away before he did. He tried to conjure up a world without Morse in it, not alive, nowhere to be found. Not just how it had been for the past two decades where they had simply not been in contact, no greater barrier than an hour's train journey and their own selves preventing them from meeting. Morse had been a constant through his life, an unseen one at times...Christ, would he be on the phone to Julia about it, drinking and weeping?

He sought to keep such thoughts at bay, in the knowledge that he would one day have to deal with them as a reality, or indeed, that Morse would have to.  
He wished he could give Morse something, some form of comfort, or at the very least something else to occupy his mind, to somewhat fill the torn gap left by Max. 

"Morse. Morse...you do know that you changed my life?" Peter kept ploughing ahead, wanting to say this now when they would both allow it, to say it in case they never got another chance. "You never pitied me. Instead you helped me face Blenheim Vale. You were there, and you were good to me. I'm not even sure what I would be like if I hadn't met you. Blenheim Vale might have got the best of me. I can't offer you anything like Max did, but just...well, now you know there was at least someone else, alright?" 

Silence fell and Peter let it develop. His stomach lurched queasily, wanting to be sitting beside Morse now, saying nothing, perhaps not even touching, and yet also wanting to throw the phone down and go back to bed. 

"Peter. You...you made my burden more bearable as well." 

Their words died once more. This increasing recurrence and the lengthening gaps told Peter that he should end the call soon. Morse was most likely beginning to slide under the effect of the whiskey and would soon be asleep. 

"Morse. Go to bed, alright? Call me in the morning." 

The other man sighed down the phone and with a thud, it was as if Peter could see the heaviness in Morse's eyes and his mouth, and Peter felt it so keenly in his own body. 

"Is there going to be any sort of a ceremony for the Doc?" 

"Probably not." 

"Well, if there is or isn't, let me know, and I can come to Oxford. London's not that far away, y'know." 

"You mean, come along, drink and talk about the old times?" Morse enunciated, the sarcasm a low but powerful undercurrent. 

"Would that be so awful, Morse?"

"'My theme is memory...'" 

"What now?" 

"It's from 'Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh." 

"Never read it." 

"You should. The older I get, the more I find I recognise Charles Ryder all too easily." 

"In yourself?" 

"In everyone around me."

And so, they murmured those meaningless words of farewell once more, hung up their phones and sat for a while longer, Peter in his hallway, Morse on his couch, watching a pale grey dawn struggling to make itself known.


End file.
